It Happened In A Blink
by poetzproblem
Summary: <html><head></head>A collection of various drabbles and ficlets set within the Don't Blink universe.</html>
1. Every Girl and Boy Needs A Little Joy

**Author's Note:** Most of these were originally posted on tumblr but were never archived until now. They are included in posting order. Unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own.

The first ficlet is set directly before _Just Give Me A Little Bit More_.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Glee_ or the characters, I just like to play with them…strictly non-profit.

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><p><strong><strong>Every Girl and Boy Needs A Little Joy<strong>**

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><p><em>Every girl and boy needs a little joy.<em>  
><em>All you do is sit and stare.<em>  
><em>~Do You Wanna Touch Me, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts<em>

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><p>Rachel never had the opportunity to be a true college girl in the sense that other college girls did. Social activities at NYADA usually consisted of backstabbing fellow students for a role—not that she ever personally did (very much of) that—rather than just hanging out at a coffee shop and chatting about something as mundane as the weather with an eclectic mix of fellow students from all manner of scholastic interests. She'd always been just a little bit jealous of Quinn during those weekend visits to Yale because she'd been immersed in the quintessential—no pun intended—college experience. Rachel suspects that if she'd actually been close enough to Santana during their college years to bother to visit the sprawling blocks of the Upper West Side that housed the Columbia campus, she'd have been equally jealous of her college experience as well.<p>

She finds it amusing that she's actually been on campus to visit Santana more now that Santana is in med school and, therefore, actually on campus less. They're getting along better these days—Rachel knows it's less that Santana genuinely wants to spend the extra time with her and more that Rachel is Quinn's girlfriend now and has become a somewhat tolerable substitute when Quinn's not available. On their better days, she entertains the notion that maybe—just _maybe_—Santana actually likes her for more reasons than just their shared affection for Quinn. In any case, Rachel will never turn down the offer of a free cup of coffee from the Joe Coffee in Morningside Heights, even if it means listening to Santana bitch and moan about her insane schedule, her fellow med students, and the intricacies of endless medical terms that Rachel is, frankly, leery to ask for clarification on. Mostly, she just hums and grunts encouragingly in what she deems are the appropriate places.

It's Santana who actually turns their latest conversation toward the personal when she complains that, "I don't even have the time or energy for a decent mattress tango anymore. How the fuck am I supposed to unwind? I needs a warm body under me or I get twitchy?"

Rachel rolls her eyes into her coffee cup as she takes another sip. "Not that I am in any way soliciting the details of your sexual antics, but I thought that you were currently engaging in one of your little, mutually beneficial non-relationships. Cheryl, isn't it?" she asks. "The psychology major?"

Santana shrugs. "I had to cut that one off short."

"Don't you cut them all off short?" Rachel wonders, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but Cheryl was too kinky, even for me. I like me some toys as much as the next lesbian. Give me a good strap-on and a woman who knows how to use it," she murmurs, smiling fondly for a moment as her dark eyes taking on a distant look before she snaps back to the present with an exaggerated grimace. "But I draw the line at nipple clamps. Those little fuckers hurt like a bitch."

Rachel's lips part silently as she watches Santana take a sip of her coffee. Once again, it's more information than she was looking for, and she shudders in sympathy at the thought of nipple clamps (because ouch!), but—well, she can't help wondering—

"You…um…you've used a…a strap-on?"

Santana gives her a weird look, and then she starts to laugh. "Aw, are you and Q not past the baby-lesbian stage yet? Still getting your fingers wet?" she taunts, curling her own in a lewd motion.

Rachel reaches over and closes her hand around Santana's, pushing it down as she glances around the coffee shop self-consciously. Santana only laughs harder. "Forget it," Rachel mutters, feeling her face heat even more.

"Come on, Tiny. Man up," she snickers at her own joke. "If you wanna play with the big-girl toys, just say so. Don't let Quinn top you every time."

"She doesn't," Rachel defends heatedly, regretting it the moment that she sees Santana flash a wolfish grin.

"You're way too easy," she teases wickedly. "I didn't even have to get you drunk this time to get some details."

Rachel ducks her head and stares down into her coffee cup. "Can we please talk about something else?" she begs, wondering why conversations with Santana always and inevitably circle back to sex. Still, Rachel can't deny that the possibility of moving past the _baby-lesbian stage_—as Santana so crassly phrased it—with Quinn is certainly something worth thinking about.


	2. If I'm A Fool For Love

**Author's Note: **Set after _Getting Crazy By the Bottom of the Bottle._ The first April 1st after their wedding.

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><p><strong>If I'm A Fool For Love<strong>

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><p><em>When I look into your eyes I see,<br>__Everything I was meant to be.  
><em>_If I'm a fool for love,  
><em>_I don't care. I don't care.  
><em>_~Fool For Love, Belinda Carlisle_

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><p>It's a gorgeous spring day—one of the first after a long, dreary winter—but instead of being outside enjoying the beautiful weather, Rachel has to settle for the breeze from the open window. She's sprawled out on the sofa with a purring Oliver at her feet, perusing the new sheet music for the original show that she's currently work-shopping. So far, the new song that Zachary is adamant about including just isn't speaking to her at all.<p>

"Rach, sweetie, do you have time to look over something for me?" Quinn asks as she glides into their living room.

Rachel hums distractedly as she rests the pages on her chest and tips her head back against the armrest to gaze up at her wife with a soft smile. When she sees an entirely different set of white pages gently grasped in Quinn's hand, she grins widely and scrambles into an upright position, letting the sheet music fall forgotten to the cushions as Oliver releases an annoyed mewl at the disturbance before letting his eyes drift shut once again.

"Gimme," Rachel demands, making grabby motions for the papers that Quinn is holding.

Quinn chuckles and shakes her head, holding them just out of Rachel's eager reach. "It's just a rough draft," she warns.

"I don't care. You've been in there typing at ungodly hours for the last two weeks instead of snuggling with me, and I'm dying to know what amazing world you're creating this time."

Quinn's second novel has been sitting pretty on the bestseller list for months now, and her agent is in talks with two studios that want the film rights. Rachel is so incredibly proud of Quinn and so happy that the rest of the world is sitting up and taking notice of her talent. They're both incredibly blessed to be able to do the things that they love (and make money doing them).

Quinn had taken a little break from outlining her next novel while she'd gone on her book tour, though she still hasn't given up the part-time copy-editing job that supplements her income, and last month, they'd finally gotten to take their belated, extended honeymoon. Not that Rachel hadn't enjoyed the three, blissful days they'd spent soaking up the sun in the Hamptons right after their wedding—or more precisely, taking full advantage of the bed at the upscale house they'd rented—but she'd hated not being able to give Quinn a proper honeymoon at the time, thanks to her obligations with _Funny Girl_. The three weeks that they'd spent bouncing from London to Paris and across the beautiful coastline in between had more than made up for their first, rushed attempt.

Now they're both back to work, which means that Rachel is spending the long, boring days locked in a rehearsal hall while Quinn is practically attached to her laptop, and Rachel has yet to read any of what she's been writing. It's driving her insane.

Quinn gazes down at her wife with barely concealed uncertainty as she nervously bites into her lower lip. "It's a little bit different," she cautions again.

"I like different," Rachel insists, making another grab for the pages—her fingertips grazing the edge of the still-warm paper.

Quinn smiles crookedly, sighing as she hands them over. "Here you go."

"Yay!" Rachel squeals excitedly, snatching them up and settling back on the sofa with her legs crossed beneath her as her eyes immediately move to the pages.

Quinn gingerly sits down beside her, displacing Oliver from his throne in the process. He grunts—Rachel has discovered that cats are apparently capable of doing that—and scurries out of the way until Quinn is settled before he plops himself down into her lap and demands to be petted.

Despite Quinn's warning, Rachel is expecting to read her wife's familiar, vivid writing style and be dragged into whatever fantastical world that Quinn has chosen to bring to life this time. Her first two novels had been grounded in realism, but colored with touches of fantasy that had given them just a little something extra to keep the reader engaged. As Rachel reads through the first paragraph, she realizes that more than the style is familiar. She's immediately introduced to a female protagonist named Lucille, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Quinn, and Rachel frowns a little. She'd thought that Quinn had moved away from the semi-autobiographical character traits after her first novel, but she keeps on reading with an open mind. About two thousand words into the introspective scene, Rachel's eyes snag on the name _Rae_ as a second character enters the story, and her frown deepens as she recognizes too much of herself in the character. She's not certain exactly how she feels about this development, but she trusts Quinn, and she's never been disappointed with anything that she's written in the past, so she keeps reading. A few hundred words later, the two characters are—oh, they're doing _that_.

Rachel softly clears her throat, glancing over at Quinn surreptitiously.

"Do you not like it?" Quinn asks worriedly, fingers idly playing with Oliver's ear.

"Oh…oh, no," Rachel assures her with a strained smile. "It's just…when you said it was different, I wasn't expecting…um," she trails off.

Quinn's lips quirk into a teasing grin. "It's called a romance novel, Rach."

"Well, of…of course it is," she stutters. "Um…the…their names though?"

Quinn waves away her concern. "Oh, those are just tentative for now. Keep reading," she encourages. "I want your honest opinion."

Her honest opinion? What is she supposed to say to that? _Well, baby, it's extremely well written as always, but you appear to be writing lesbian smut loosely based on us. Are you sure you want to give this to your editor? _Rachel merely smiles and turns her eyes back to the page, scanning down over the words until she finds the place where she left off—with Rae ghosting her hands over Lucille's _ass_ets. And okay—it's undeniably stimulating, but she honestly can't believe that Quinn could even write this when she still occasionally has trouble talking about sex outside of their bedroom. And really? This scene feels vaguely familiar, like—well, it kind of reads like—wait!

"Lucy Quinn Fabray!" she growls as realization dawns on her. "How could you?" she demands, waving the pages around in agitation. "How could you turn our beautiful first time together into some cheap, pornographic fodder for your newest novel? This is…I can't believe you," she stammers, voice wavering as she clutches the pages to her chest. The memory of that perfect evening is still so fresh in Rachel's mind, even after all these years—the love shining in Quinn's eyes as she'd slowly stripped Rachel's dress away and caressed every inch of her. To read it on a page in Quinn's manuscript— "It…it's…"

"A really good April Fool's Day joke," Quinn finishes with a blossoming smile.

Rachel gapes at her in open-mouthed shock. April Fool's—?

Belatedly, she realizes that today is, in fact, the first of April. Her mouth snaps shut with a click of her teeth, and she glares at her wife. "You suck," she hisses, whacking Quinn over the head with the pages and watching her dissolve into uncontrollable giggles, shaking Oliver from his revelry and irritating him enough to finally jump to the floor and stalk away. "You really suck," she repeats, biting back her own laughter—because her ridiculous wife had actually written a good twenty pages just to play a practical joke on her. When Quinn commits to something, she really doesn't half-ass it.

"You should have seen your face," Quinn tells breathlessly.

Rachel tosses the pages onto the floor in exaggerated disgust, though she's feeling kind of tickled by the whole thing at this point. "I feel like sending those pages to Aileen and telling her it's what you're working on for your next book."

Quinn chuckles again, closing the scant distance between them and kissing Rachel's cheek. "She'll really think I've gone crazy when she gets to the end of the chapter and realizes that Lucille has a cock."

Rachel's eyes widen and her head snaps to the side to stare at Quinn. "She what?"

"Ten inches," Quinn confirms with a smirk. "Just in case you managed to make it through the first part without saying anything."

Rachel's eyebrows arch, and she can't help glancing back down at the pages on the floor, curiosity peaked. "Well, that's not very realistic," she mumbles, trying to wrap her mind around the image with a slight frown.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "That was kind of the point. I can't believe you honestly thought I'd try to have _that_ published," she chastises, slipping an arm around Rachel's waist and snuggling closer.

"Well, you do have a talent with…_that_," Rachel teases, shifting around until she can melt into Quinn's arms. "Maybe we can recreate the scene," she purrs suggestively, brushing her lips across Quinn's, "minus the ten inch cock, of course."

Quinn grins against her lips. "Would you settle for the seven inch one in the little box in the bedroom?"

Rachel jerks her head back, eyeing Quinn skeptically. The one she's referring to is strapless, and Quinn never suggests using that one on her own. "This isn't another April Fool's joke, is it?"

"Scouts honor," Quinn promises, slipping her palm underneath Rachel's shirt.

"You were never a scout," Rachel reminds her.

Quinn catches Rachel's lower lips between her own, teasing it enticingly with her tongue before she says, "Tonight, I'll be anything you want me to be."

Rachel moans softly before she drags Quinn's mouth back to hers and into a sensual kiss. Their bodies slide down further on the sofa, and Rachel curves her palms over Quinn's_assets_. She makes a mental note to snatch those pages back up and finish reading Quinn's smut—but much, much later, after she makes Quinn show her in exquisite detail how the scene ends. She may be a fool, but she's wise enough to take advantage of her wife whenever she can. And oh, baby, she's going to take advantage of her tonight.


	3. To Cover Up

**Author's Note:** Drabble for Faberry Week: Hickeys. Set after _Where Your Book Begins_ and before _Just A Little Bit Caught_.

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><p><strong>To Cover Up<strong>

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><p><em><em>Don't need make up<em>_  
><em><em>To cover up.<em>_  
><em><em>Being the way that you are is enough.<br>~What Makes You Beautiful, One Direction__

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><p>Laura knows before anyone.<p>

She has an eye for detail and a career built on the art of covering things up. Eight times a week, she covers up the small, crescent scar on Rachel Berry's forehead that she'd gotten falling off a stage at the tender age of two, and she covers up the tiny gold star tattooed on her wrist that appeared after opening night. Laura had been pissed about the extra work, but a job is a job.

Laura knows when Michael Garcia pokes his head into Rachel's dressing room a week after opening night as she's applying the makeup for Maria's first scene and asks her if that hot blonde friend of hers is single.

Rachel's mouth turns down into a frown beneath the lipstick that Laura is carefully applying before she snaps, "You aren't her type," and Laura curses under her breath at the smear the movement causes on Rachel's lips.

"I'm everyone's type," he boasts.

"Not Quinn's," she insists.

"What? Is she gay or something?" he asks laughingly, and Rachel only glares until he gets the message, holds up his hands in surrender, and backs out of the room slowly.

Laura knows because she knows all about Quinn—every tedious detail of their high school rivalry, their triumphant path to friendship, the many outings they've shared since Quinn moved to New York, and all of the reasons why Rachel doesn't approve of the women that Quinn chooses to date.

Laura knows when Rachel chatters in her makeup chair for two days straight about some guy named Peter who's just come back from London and asked her out to dinner. She doesn't ask for details—she never needs to ask with Rachel—but she gets the story anyway, and when Rachel returns to her chair, uncharacteristically quiet after their date, Laura really doesn't need to ask why.

Laura knows when Rachel shows up one Friday with a secret smile, rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, and yet another thing for Laura to cover up. She brushes Rachel's hair to the side, assessing the deep purple bruises on her neck and collar bone with a critical eye and watches Rachel's cheeks turn even duskier.

"Sorry," she mumbles sheepishly.

Laura sighs and shakes her head, choosing the appropriate shade of cover-up to make Rachel's indiscretions disappear. "Just tell Quinn to be more careful in the future."

Rachel's eyes grow wide, and she chokes back a nervous laugh, but she doesn't deny it. She only nods before tipping her head to the side and giving Laura room to work her magic. By the time she's finished, no one will ever know the marks are there.

But Laura knows.


	4. Dreaming While I Drove

**Author's Note:** Set after _Make It Harder To Be Near You_ and before _A Feline Casanova. _ Somewhat expanded from the semi-drabble first posted on Tumblr.

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><p><strong>Dreaming While I Drove<strong>

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><p><em>I was dreaming while I drove<br>__the long straight road ahead.  
><em>_Could taste your sweet kisses,  
><em>_your arms open wide.  
><em>_This fever for you is just  
><em>_burning me up inside.  
><em>_~I Drove All Night, Cyndi Lauper_

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><p>"I miss you so much."<p>

The five simple words, uttered so dejectedly with glistening, brown eyes staring dolefully back at her through the webcam, instantly have Quinn's throat tightening and a familiar heaviness weighing on her heart. Her own eyes sting in commiseration as she forces out a choked, "I miss you too," and manages to smile sadly at the screen. "But it won't be for much longer," she reminds Rachel hopefully.

Rachel doesn't look impressed. "I hate this," she grumbles, glancing away from the camera. "I just want to be home…with you," she whines.

Quinn swallows down the lump in her throat—she wants that too. Their apartment is too quiet without Rachel in it. She'd been spoiled by months of (mostly) blissful cohabitation, of sharing meals and sharing showers, of cuddling on the sofa and talking about their days, of falling asleep tangled up in one another and waking up the same way. Sleeping alone again sucks.

They'd argued for a week about Rachel taking this job—a six month contract as Eponine with the touring company of _Les Miserables_. Rachel had been adamantly against leaving New York, despite her steady spiral into panic and depression after four months of booking nothing but a few voiceovers and jingles for local radio ads and singing eighties cover songs at someone's Bar Mitzvah, but Quinn had pleaded with her not to pass up a role that she'd always wanted just because it would require a little bit of travel and a temporary long-distance relationship. Rachel had eventually given in—she really couldn't bring herself to refuse the role. It was hard, but they were surviving the distance, and they've managed to see one another in person a few times when the show had been circling the Northeast. Quinn had seen Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh (or parts of them from the airport to the hotel window) in just under a month, but her finances really couldn't sustain the life of a groupie long term, so they mostly made due with Skype dates. The long weeks that Rachel had spent on the west coast had been the worst, especially with the time difference.

Quinn can see how exhausted Rachel is, and she wants nothing more than to be there, holding her until the dark circles under her eyes disappear. "This is only temporary," she promises, pressing the tips of her fingers to the edge of the screen as if it will somehow make her closer to Rachel—able to magically touch her. She has every confidence that Rachel will come home to her in a few months and get another role in a Broadway-based production. She's too talented and too dedicated for any other outcome.

A soft buzz hums through the speakers of Quinn's laptop, and she watches her girlfriend glance down at her phone before she looks back up to the camera with a frown. "I have to go," she tells Quinn sadly.

Quinn nods in understanding. Rachel has an eight o'clock performance at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit—one of eighteen over a two week period—and she's still in her hotel room. The hotel that the company is staying at is only a three minute walk, but there's wardrobe and makeup to contend with, and even though it's not quite seven yet, Quinn knows that Rachel really needs to get going. "Break a leg," she offers. "You know, later on stage. Not while you're walking to the theatre."

Rachel chuckles a little. "I'll do my best. Although, I would be able to come home sooner," she pouts.

Quinn knows Rachel doesn't really mean that—she would never renege on a contract. "Do you want me to call you later?" Quinn asks. Rachel actually managed to wrangle her own room this time, so Quinn won't have to worry about any late night conversations (or other things) disturbing her roommate.

Rachel sighs raggedly. "As much I would love that, I'm kind of exhausted. I think I should try to get a decent night of sleep."

"Take care of yourself, sweetie," Quinn urges with a worried frown. "I love you."

"I love you too, baby," Rachel breathes with a tired smile. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Quinn echoes before Rachel disconnects and her screen goes black.

She closes her laptop—she's in no mood to write anything tonight—and decides to distract herself with a few repetitive household chores, turning on the radio as she begins to clean up the kitchen. The weekends are the worst for missing Rachel. At least during the week, Quinn has her job to distract her, and the long hours at work help keep her from thinking too much about her empty apartment. It feels even emptier tonight.

There isn't much to clean since she's only cooking for herself now, but she'd let the skillet sit too long while she'd talked to Rachel and it needs a little extra scrubbing now. Her movements gradually still when an old Cyndi Lauper song floats into her ears—she likes this version much better than the Celine Dion one that Rachel has in her library—and the lyrics paint images in her mind of driving to Rachel, creeping into her hotel room, and curling her body around her girlfriend.

She could do it.

Detroit isn't exactly in her backyard, but it's not on the other side of the world either.

Quinn drops the skillet into the sink and grabs a towel to dry her hands as she races back to her laptop. She pulls up Google maps and calculates the distance. Over six hundred miles and almost ten hours of travel time make her stomach sink for a moment, and she starts looking up flights instead, but there's only one that could possibly work, and aside from being ridiculously expensive, she doesn't think she could actually make it to the airport in time. But she knows the nearby Budget Rent-A-Car is open until eleven, and it's only a few blocks away.

There are a dozen reasons why she should close her laptop and laugh off her insane idea and only one reason not to, but that one is more than enough. Her heart is screaming so much louder than her head, so she looks up the number of the rental agency and calls them while she's rummaging in her closet for a small suitcase. Luckily, they have a Hyundai Elantra with a full tank of gas available that's a little cheaper than the plane tickets would have been, so Quinn tosses a handful of clothes into her bag, not particularly caring if they match, and grabs her necessary toiletries.

It takes her thirty minutes to get to the lot, sign the papers, and get behind the wheel of the car. She programs the address of the Hotel St. Regis into her navigation and presses her foot down on the accelerator. The hardest part is getting out of the city. After that, it's mostly interstate driving, and she's familiar enough with the first half of the journey across Pennsylvania and into Ohio. Even though she flies back to Lima—well, technically Columbus—more often that she drives, she'd made the trip by car twice after she'd moved to New York in order to transport the last of her important belongings from her mother's house to her new home in the city.

Still, it's a long, boring drive, especially through Pennsylvania, and she's somewhere in the middle of the state when her eyes begin to get heavy, so she turns up the radio and cracks open the window, despite the fact that it's late October and the temperature has taken a turn for colder. The sharp bite of the night air helps to keep her awake, as does the ever-growing anticipation of holding Rachel in her arms again.

The gas gauge begins to dip into the critical zone at around one-thirty, so she finally stops for a few minutes at an exit north of State College, and her legs and back file a joint protest with her brain when she tries to get out of the car. She's stiff and sore and seriously doubting her sanity, but she's halfway there by now, so there's really no turning back. After working out the kinks in her body and making a quick trip into the restroom, she fills her tank and gets back in the car, and in a few more hours, she's crossing into Ohio and mentally counting down the miles until she's in Michigan.

And really, she'll never understand her ex's fixation on that state, but those are musings for another time when her brain is functioning on more than hazy thoughts of Rachel.

She tops off her gas tank again in Toledo and leaves Ohio in her rearview mirror around five in the morning, pressing her foot down a little harder on the accelerator to make those last sixty miles disappear even faster. She gets lost one time when she makes a wrong turn after getting off I-75—fucking unreliable GPS—and ends up driving around downtown Detroit for twenty minutes before she finally finds the hotel, and it's almost six-thirty when she puts the car into park.

Quinn knows that she probably looks like death warmed over after being awake for twenty-four hours and driving all night, but she doesn't care. She can feel the adrenaline pumping through her body as she walks into the hotel because she knows that she's finally in the same building as Rachel, and it's been far too long since they've seen each other in person.

She smiles at the woman at the front desk and turns on all her charm as she attempts to talk her way into Rachel's room, but the woman isn't having it, insisting, "It's against hotel policy to release information on any guests."

"Look, I _live_ with Rachel," Quinn growls. "I guarantee you that she'll want to see me."

The woman—Yvonne—is completely unmoved, calmly staring her down. "It's against the hotel's policy, ma'am," she repeats curtly. "If you're a friend of Ms. Berry, then I'm sure you have a way of contacting her yourself, and if she wants to see you, she'll come down to the lobby. Otherwise, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

As much as Quinn would love to fly across the countertop and throttle the woman, she doesn't want to end up getting kicked out of the hotel after she'd traveled all night to get here, so she retreats to the lounge with a scowl, out of _Yvonne's_ line of sight. She collapses into one of the chairs and tips her head back, closing her eyes for a moment before she reluctantly calls Rachel's cellphone. So much for stealthily creeping into her room and waking her up with a kiss.

A gruff and groggy, "'Lo," finally scratches over the line with an adorable lack of awareness, and Quinn feels simultaneously giddy at the sound of her voice and guilty for waking her up.

"Good morning, sweetheart."

"Quinn," Rachel breathes in happy confusion, and then, "Quinn?" with sudden alertness. "Why are you calling so early? What happened? Is something wrong?"

Quinn chuckles. "Nothing's wrong, Rach," she reassures her. She's about to tell Rachel that she's downstairs, but then she realizes that there's still a way to salvage at least a small part of her surprise, so she only says, "I just really miss waking up with you and wanted to hear your voice this morning."

"You could have heard my voice two hours from now," Rachel grumbles mildly.

Quinn smiles to herself, thinking about all those early mornings when Rachel had been up before the sun and working out—or tempting Quinn into a different kind of work out. But she also knows that Rachel just doesn't sleep as well without Quinn beside her these days. It's the same for Quinn.

"But you'd probably be up by then, and I want to imagine you in bed, with your hair all curly and spread out over the pillow and your body tangled up in the sheets…your pajama top riding up over your naked stomach and twisted under your breasts."

Quinn hears a muffled whimper hidden in Rachel's slow exhalation. "Is this one of _those_ calls?" she asks breathlessly.

"Are you in bed?" Quinn prompts.

"Yes."

"Your flannel pajamas or the Yale t-shirt that you stole from me?"

There's a pause, and Quinn can almost hear the smile in Rachel's voice when she answers, "The t-shirt."

"How big is the bed?" Quinn wonders as she cradles the phone to her ear and casually traces her fingers over the fabric on her chair.

"It's a queen. Plenty of room for you, baby."

Quinn grins wickedly. She plans to be there in a matter of minutes. "What's your room number?"

There's another pause. "That's hardly a sexy question, Quinn," Rachel censures.

"I want to create the perfect setting in my mind so I can be there with you. The room you're in, the floor you're on, the view, the décor," Quinn explains huskily. "Bring me there with you," she urges, standing up from her chair and peering over to the front desk to see that Yvonne is distracted with another guest.

Rachel sighs raggedly. "I'm on the fourth floor. Room 437. There's a view of the parking lot," Rachel mutters irksomely, but Quinn is already sprinting to the elevator and pressing the call button. "You'd like the room though," Rachel continues unknowingly. "It's clean and modern and not too flowery. There's a desk by the window with the terrible view that's the perfect height for…things," she reveals suggestively as Quinn slips inside the elevator and punches the button for the fourth floor.

"Things like writing," Quinn teases while the elevator slowly takes her up.

Rachel huffs. "You are terribly out of practice at your phone sex."

Quinn laughs in delight, shaking her head. "So let's get back to the bed. Is it soft? Are the sheets smooth against your skin?"

"So soft and smooth, Quinn," Rachel murmurs. "But so cold without you here."

"I can keep you warm," Quinn promises, silently rejoicing when the elevator doors finally slide open, and she races down the hallway in search of Rachel's room. "I can't wait to crawl into that bed with you…slip my hands under your t-shirt and tangle our legs together. I'll press you down into that soft mattress and kiss you until you can't remember a time when we've ever been apart."

"Quinn," Rachel whimpers.

Room 437 comes into view, complete with a Privacy Please sign hanging on the doorknob, but Quinn ignores that and raises her hand to knock sharply against the door.

"Son of a," Rachel growls. "Why is everyone up so damn early today?"

"Sorry, sweetie," Quinn apologizes. "Do you need to get that?"

"No," Rachel quickly tells her. "Just keep talking to me, so I can pretend you're here too."

Quinn smiles, knocking again—more insistently this time—before she says, "Maybe you should see who it is first? It could be important."

Rachel grunts, and Quinn can hear the swish of fabric over the phone and an irritated, "Fine," and then there's a rattle from the other side of the door. "Just give me a second while I get rid of this," the door is jerked open to reveal a sleep-tousled, scowling Rachel with her hair sticking up in every direction and wearing nothing more than Quinn's favorite Yale t-shirt. "Idiot," Rachel squeaks as her phone slips out of her hand, and she stares at Quinn in shock.

"Morning, Rach," Quinn says again as she disconnects the call and tucks her own phone into the pocket of her jacket.

Rachel closes her eyes, shaking her head slightly as if she thinks she's dreaming before she opens them again. "Oh, my God!" she squeals, flinging herself at Quinn and pulling her into a breath-stealing kiss.

Quinn wraps her arms around Rachel's waist and melts into her, urging her back into the room as she deepens the kiss. God, she's really missed this—missed _Rachel_—so much. The door falls closed behind them with a bang, and Rachel wastes no time pressing Quinn back against it. "I can't believe you're really here," she mumbles between kisses.

"I had to see you," Quinn confesses, cupping her hands to the curve of Rachel's ass and dragging her closer.

Rachel lifts her head and gazes up at Quinn with sparking eyes and an adoring smile. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"

"It was a last minute decision," Quinn admits with a grin. "I rented a car and drove through the night."

Rachel's smile slips. "You drove six hundred miles by yourself with no sleep? Are you crazy?"

Probably.

Definitely.

"Crazy about you."

Rachel stares at her for a moment before she laughs and hugs Quinn close. "I am so completely in love with you, Quinn Fabray."

Quinn will never get tired of hearing that. "I love you too, Rachel. Now," she drawls with a devilish smirk, "I believe we were getting back to that bed."

Rachel hums in pleasure, pressing a kiss to Quinn's jaw. "You did promise to keep me warm."

Quinn slips one hand down between Rachel's legs, curling her fingers into the dampness there until she makes Rachel moan. "You feel pretty hot to me," she purrs.

Rachel's blunt nails drag against Quinn's hips as she presses forward, grinding into Quinn's hand. "This is so much better than phone sex," she gasps before pulling Quinn back into a sloppy kiss.

Quinn couldn't agree more, and with renewed energy, she guides Rachel to the bed, determined to make every single fantasy that she'd had during her long drive come true. And together—they turn all of those fantasies into memories that will last a lifetime.

Quinn is so very glad that she drove all night.


	5. Take A Cup Of Kindness

**Author's Note: ** A _Don't Blink_ side story. Set between _Dust On Every Page _and _Every Hour Has Come To This._

* * *

><p><strong>Take A Cup Of Kindness<strong>

* * *

><p><em>For auld lang syne, my dear,<br>__for auld lang syne,  
><em>_We'll take a cup of kindness yet,  
><em>_for auld lang syne.  
>~Auld Lang Syne, Robert Burns<em>

* * *

><p>It's after nine when Josie arrives at Kurt Hummel's apartment in Hell's Kitchen. She'd stayed at her office later than she'd intended, elbow deep in research for a case, and by the time she got out, the city streets were already overflowing with throngs of people descending on Times Square and every other New Year's Eve celebration going on in the city. She'd been a part of that insanity once, years ago when she'd still been in law school, coming down from Boston over winter break and letting Quinn drag her to Times Square along with Rachel, Kurt, and Santana Lopez. It had been Quinn's first year living in New York, and they'd all frozen their asses off in the middle of a million people to watch the ball drop before getting drunk off their collective asses.<p>

She doesn't need to repeat that particular experience.

She could be attending the party that her brand new boss is hosting from his penthouse apartment uptown, but Josie has only been working at the firm for a few months, having just moved down from Boston, and, frankly, she doesn't yet know any of her co-workers well enough to want to see them outside of business hours. So she'd been grateful for the invitation from Kurt—no doubt at Quinn's prompting—to a low-key celebration at his place.

Josie is only a little surprised when Rachel Berry opens the door, wearing a brilliant smile and a black sweater featuring a large, knitted champagne bottle, tipping glass, and an array of colorful confetti. Josie would never wear it, but somehow on Rachel, it looks perfect—or maybe it's just the skintight jeans and boots that she's paired it with. "Josie, hi. Happy New Year," Rachel greets, pulling her into a warm hug before pulling her inside the apartment.

"Happy New Year," Josie echoes back, presenting a bottle of Devaux. "Champagne for the host," she offers, glancing into the surprisingly crowded apartment. This is Kurt's idea of low-key? "Where _is_the host?"

Rachel laughs. "Oh, he's in there somewhere," she says, waving a dismissive hand before she accepts the bottle. "You really didn't need to bring anything."

"My mother taught me to never show up at someone's house empty-handed," she explains as she unbuttons her coat.

"She also taught you how to prepare the perfect cup of tea and cut the crust off of cucumber sandwiches," Quinn points out with a grin, having slipped into the entryway to stand next to Rachel during their exchange, "but you drink coffee and eat crusty bread."

"But I can host a killer Afternoon Tea if I want," Josie fires back, shrugging out of her coat.

"I'm going to run this into the kitchen," Rachel says, tapping the bottle with a fingernail. "Quinn, baby, toss her coat in the bedroom and then go find Kurt and tell him what a terrible host he is."

"This is what you get for agreeing to help him throw this party," Quinn chastises playfully. At Rachel's exaggerated pout, Quinn rolls her eyes and quickly pecks her girlfriend's lips. "Go." Rachel grins and rushes into the apartment while Quinn holds out her hand to take Josie's coat with a smile.

"I was expecting less people."

Quinn shakes her head. "So were we, but Kurt invited a few of the people he's been working with on his label, and his current boyfriend, Alan, invited a few of his friends, and Santana brought her friend with benefits, Janelle," she says with another roll of her eyes, "and…well," she hedges, shrugging, "Rachel and I invited Sarah so she wouldn't have to be alone."

Josie pauses at that revelation, gaping at Quinn. Of course, she's heard all about Quinn's ex-girlfriend moving to New York, and she knows that Quinn has spoken with Sarah a few times over the last few months, but she certainly didn't think they were chummy enough for Quinn to bring her along on a New Year's Eve date with Rachel. "You _and_ _Rachel _invited her?" she clarifies suspiciously.

Quinn laughs a little. "Well, Rachel wasn't thrilled about it at first, but she's pretty much a sucker for a poor, unfortunate soul."

Josie frowns in confusion. "Since when is Sarah Cartwright a poor, unfortunate soul?"

"Oh, she isn't, really," Quinn acknowledges, "but she's all alone in the big city, miles away from everyone she knows, with nowhere to go and no one to spend the holiday with," she points out with a smirk. "I just had to pluck the right heartstrings."

"And Rachel fell for that?"

Quinn blushes lightly. "I might have had to bribe her a little, too."

"Must have been one hell of a bribe," Josie teases, noticing the expression on Quinn's face and comparing it to what a good mood Rachel seems to be in tonight.

"It served its purpose," Quinn admits with an embarrassed smile.

Josie chuckles as she follows Quinn further into the apartment until Quinn briefly disappears down a narrow hallway to dispose of her coat. It's a really nice place—spacious and modern, with clean lines, large windows, and a beautiful view of the city. There's music playing just loud enough to be a pleasant background track to the conversation and laughter happening around her. A few people here look like they walked out of a magazine—models most probably—but the majority of them are casually dressed in jeans and sweaters, although no one else went the _festive_ route that Rachel chose. That's probably a good thing.

"Josie Deveraux! Hello, hello," Kurt twitters, rushing over with a glass of wine to give her a kiss on her cheek. "Happy New Year, and welcome to my humble abode."

"Thanks for inviting me," she returns with a smile.

"There are hors d'oeuvres on the kitchen island and…well, scattered around the room, by now," he informs her jovially, "and there are various wines and champagnes in the kitchen, so help yourself."

"You _are _a terrible host," Rachel scolds, coming up beside him with a wine glass in each hand, one of which she extends to Josie. "Cabernet Sauvignon, if I remember correctly."

Josie nods, impressed. "You do. Thanks."

She turns to Kurt with a haughty look. "And _that's_ how you do it," she crows before taking a sip of the pale, pink liquid in her own glass.

"Excuse me," Quinn cuts in with a frown. "Where's mine?"

"I only have two hands, Quinn, and unlike Josie, _you_ already know where to find everything."

"Gee, thanks, sweetie," she drawls, unimpressed, but Rachel only smiles and kisses her. When they part, Quinn runs her tongue across her lower lip with a thoughtful hum. "The Chardonnay would have been better," she muses.

Rachel playfully pokes Quinn in the side before she's snagged by the waist and pulled into the curve of Quinn's body where she settles comfortably into her embrace.

Kurt rolls his eyes at them and reaches for Josie's hand. "Come on. I'll make some introductions so that I can no longer be accused of being a poor host."

Josie chuckles and lets herself be led around the crowded room while Kurt recites a list of names that she knows she'll never remember tonight. They pass by Santana, who used the occasion to dress up in the tightest, little red dress that Josie has ever seen her wear. She has a glass of wine in one hand and the ass of a pretty, short-haired, African-American woman in the other.

Santana grins a little drunkenly when she sees her. "Wha' S'up, Pussycat?"

Josie lets the familiar greeting slide by without comment and shakes her head in amusement. "Who gave you the night off?"

Santana snorts, letting go of the woman next to her. "The one and only perk of still being a med student. No one wants to babysit us tonight. This is Janelle, by the way," she gestures before turning to her companion. "Janelle, Josie. Quinn's hot friend from college."

Janelle huffs in mild exasperation but smiles politely at Josie and extends her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Josie returns, with an equally polite smile, shaking the woman's hand.

"Oh, speaking of college friends," Kurt interrupts, still at Josie's side despite his obvious distraction with observing all of his other guests, "I believe you have another one over there." His voice holds a noticeable air of coolness as he points to the far corner of the room.

Josie follows his line of sight, unsurprised to see Sarah standing close to the wall, seemingly involved in a conversation with an attractive guy that Josie hasn't yet been introduced to. She supposes that she understands Kurt's lack of enthusiasm—he's Rachel's best friend first and foremost—but even though she has her doubts about how successful this whole attempt by Quinn to befriend her ex-girlfriend will be, Josie had always liked Sarah back in their college days. Maybe she hadn't been the most spontaneous person in the world, but she'd been smart, sweet, and cute in that shy, slightly nerdy way that Josie found kind of endearing.

She's still cute, though her current posture suggests that she isn't all that comfortable—whether it's the party in general or her present company specifically, Josie can't be certain. "I believe you're right," she agrees distractedly. "If you'll excuse me."

Josie juggles her wine as she navigates around bodies and furniture. The closer she gets to Sarah and the guy, the more clearly the conversation comes into focus, and Josie realizes that it's not so much a conversation as the guy talking at Sarah about his job as a paramedic. Oh—no—wait—his job _playing_ a paramedic on some television show.

"I was only supposed to be a background character in one episode when they hired me, but they liked my looks so much that kept me around. I'll practically be a regular next season," he boasts. "You should really watch it. It's a great show."

"I don't really watch much television," Sarah mutters with a strained smile.

"Oh, come on, honey. Everybody watches television. It's the national pastime."

"Actually, that would be baseball," Josie interrupts with a smirk, suppressing a laugh when they both turn to her with matching expressions of surprise. The guy (who actually does look a little familiar now that Josie can really get a good look at him) goes from annoyed to interested in the blink of an eye, but Sarah is nothing but relieved to see a familiar face. Josie has always considered herself to be pretty adept at reading body language, and even without the inappropriate "honey," she'd bet a year of her salary that actor guy has been attempting to chat up a very uninterested Sarah.

Grinning wickedly, Josie slides an arm around Sarah's waist, momentarily ignoring the way her body stiffens under the unexpected touch. "Josie, what…?"

"Here's your wine, Sarah, _honey_," she purrs, cutting off Sarah's objection and offering her glass to the woman. "I'm sorry I left you alone for so long." Josie turns to actor guy with a grateful smile. "Thanks for keeping her company while I was gone. I'm Josie, by that way. I'd shake your hand, but," she trails off meaningfully, glancing back at Sarah, who finally seems to shake off her bewilderment as she clumsily reaches for the wine glass in Josie's hand. Josie smiles gratefully and extends her now free hand to actor guy.

She has the pleasure of watching him gape at them in confusion for a moment before he recovers and takes Josie's hand. "Nick Paul," he mumbles.

Josie shakes his hand. "Nice to meet you," she lies smoothly. "So, did I hear you say that you're an actor?" she questions dumbly. "Would I have seen you in anything?"

He looks slightly affronted, and she braces herself to listen to his resume. She's fairly certain that he hasn't been in anything significant, but she thinks she might have seen him on some crime drama as the drug dealer du jour. "You know what," he finally says, holding up his hands in silent defeat, "you probably wouldn't have. It's been nice to meet you both. Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year to you," she replies cheerfully, waiting until after he walks away to release her hold on Sarah's waist. She doesn't really dwell on just how comfortably Sarah had fit into her side.

Turning to Sarah with a smile, Josie reaches out and snags her glass back, lifting to her lips to take a sip before she casually asks, "So, how have you been? It's been what? Almost five years?"

Sarah flushes pink and shoves her hands into the pockets of her black jeans. "That…you…I," she stammers before she puffs out a frustrated breath and glances away. "Why did you do that?" she finally manages to ask in a coherent manner.

"Well, you looked like you were either praying for the building to collapse or trying to figure out if you could survive throwing yourself out the window," Josie explains teasingly. "But if I was wrong and you were enjoying that conversation, then I'm sorry," she apologizes sincerely. "It probably was an unnecessarily rude way to interrupt," she admits with a shrug.

Sarah nods. "Rude…but apparently effective. And it was the window," she confesses self-consciously, digging her hands deeper into her pockets. "I'd never want the building to collapse."

Josie laughs. "That would certainly put a damper on the party." Plus, Sarah's livelihood is tied to erecting buildings, not destroying them. "Although, you don't seem like you're having much fun," she notes conversationally before taking another sip of her wine.

Sarah shrugs, dropping her eyes as she mumbles, "Parties aren't really my forte. And I don't really know many people here."

"Did Quinn and Rachel just abandon you to your own devices?" Josie asks with a frown, giving the room a cursory glance and spotting the couple, side-by-side, talking to one of Kurt's friends.

"No," Sarah denies quickly. "They…well, Quinn meant well, I think," she defends weakly, looking more than a little uncomfortable. "To be fair, I…I guess I'm not really in the mood to watch them together for an extended period of time."

Josie can feel her eyebrows inch up as she breathes out a quiet, "Oh." The idea that Sarah might still be carrying a torch for Quinn bothers her, for a multitude of reasons—a few of which she's not in the mood to analyze right now.

Sarah's eyes widen. "Not that I'm…there's nothing…I'm over Quinn," she insists clumsily, dragging her hands out of her pockets and crossing her right arm beneath her breasts to nervously rub at her left arm. "It's just…awkward."

Josie also isn't in the mood to analyze why she feels quite so relieved at that confession. She smiles sympathetically. "I know awkward. My ex hired my mother to plan his wedding in August," she shares, quirking her lips in bitter amusement.

Sarah visibly cringes. "Ouch."

"I know." She'd dated Keith while she'd still been in law school, and they'd had an amicable breakup almost three years ago, so she's been over him for a while, but that doesn't stop her from wishing that her mother had told him to take his business elsewhere. She supposes that's what she gets for having dated someone whose parents and hers have been friends for a good twenty years.

"So how have you been?" Josie asks again with genuine interest, leaning against the wall. "Quinn said you're working at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill on Wall Street."

"Oh…um…yeah," Sarah stutters, seemingly caught off guard that Josie knows that. She fidgets a little with her hands before returning them to her pockets. "That's…the job is great, actually. It's a lot of hard work, but I'm learning so much. Um…what about you? Last I knew, you were back in…Boston, right?"

"I was. I actually just moved in November. A friend of mine from law school gave me a line on a job here, and it just felt like a good move, you know."

Sarah frowns. "Not really."

Josie shrugs a single shoulder. "Well, it's good for me right now. I have a few friends that ended up living in the area, and Megan isn't very far away in Allentown. If I feel the urge to visit my parents, Boston is just a four hour drive away."

Sarah nods at that—her expression growing wistful. "Must be nice to be so close to them."

"Sometimes _yes_, sometimes _no_," Josie says on a laugh. She'd gone back to Boston to be closer to her family, mostly because she'd wanted to spend more time with her late grandmother before she'd passed, but it didn't take long for her to remember that it _is_ possible to be too close to your family. She thinks a little distance will be better for everyone.

Sarah smiles slightly and shifts her weight. Her eyes dart around the room in that unfocused way that happens when someone is looking for something to say and hoping to find it flashing in some magical dialogue box in the sky. Josie wonders if she's making Sarah especially nervous, or if it's just the effect of her being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Josie has never had a problem feeling comfortable in these kinds of situations, but she understands that not everyone is like her.

"So," Sarah begins, drawing out the word a little too long as she forces her gaze back to Josie, "do you just transfer your law license from state to state?"

Josie chuckles and shakes her head—she wishes it was that easy. "No. I sat for the New York bar at the same time that I sat for Massachusetts. Luckily, I passed them both; otherwise I would have had to take the exam again to practice law here." There are some waivers to that requirement, depending on the state, but most of them demand more years of experience as a practicing lawyer than Josie currently has.

"Wow," Sarah murmurs with admiration glittering in her eyes. "That's kind of impressive."

"Or crazy," Josie laughingly corrects. Studying for two bars had been extremely stressful, but it really had been better in the long run to give herself an extra option from the very beginning. "What about you? How does the whole architectural license thing work? I mean, you're working here now, but…well, according to Quinn, Michigan is still the final destination."

"It is," Sarah confirms without hesitation. "For a small fee," she explains with a caustic grin, "I'll be able to apply for reciprocal registration once I meet all the requirements. So right now, I'm just focused on working toward my license."

Josie hums thoughtfully. "What exactly does that entail?"

"I…are you really interested," Sarah asks uncertainly, "or are you just making polite small talk?"

"I thought we just finished the polite small talk," Josie responds with a grin. "I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't interested," she assures her.

Sarah's cheeks grow pink again. "Oh…um…okay. Just…tell me if I start to bore you," she cautions.

"I spend my days buried up to my elbows in law books," Josie points out. "Trust me. You won't bore me," she promises.

And she isn't lying. Once Sarah starts to talk about her job and the project that she's currently working on, it's like watching a flower bloom under the sun. Her posture opens up, her hands come out of her pockets, and her eyes stay focused on Josie, sparkling with passion. Josie finds herself thinking that Sarah isn't just cute—she's absolutely lovely. That long muted buzz of attraction that she'd ignored back in college for obvious reasons suddenly starts coming in loud and clear.

The conversation flows easily once Sarah relaxes, and it even weathers an interruption by Quinn and Rachel when they come over to check on them. Josie snags two glasses of wine, and then she snags two prime seats on the low-set window seal while they talk politics, and before she knows it, the room is counting down to midnight. Sarah is smiling freely as she counts along, and when the moment arrives and the room erupts into loud cheers and a chorus of _Happy New Years_, Josie gives into her instincts and leans over to softly brush her lips across Sarah's in a brief, chaste kiss.

Sarah inhales sharply just as Josie pulls back with a crooked grin. "Happy New Year," she murmurs, barely audible beneath the impromptu rendition of _Auld Lang Syne. _Josie can hear Rachel's voice ring out clear as a bell above everyone else.

"Um…y-yeah," Sarah whispers with a pretty blush. "Wh-what was that?"

"It's tradition," Josie answers lightly, despite the heaviness in the air between them. "The person you kiss at midnight is supposed to indicate the tone for the year to come, and so far it's been a pretty good night with great company and even better conversation. I figured we could both do with more of the same," she offers with a hopeful smile. "And having another friend in this city certainly can't hurt."

Sarah's cheeks darken, and she bites back a shy grin as she nervously tucks her hair behind her ear. "I…I think I'd like that."

Josie's smile widens. She suddenly has the unshakable feeling that it's going to be a really good year.


	6. Give Me A Moment

**Author's Note: **Set between _A Feline Casanova_ and _Dust On Every Page_.

* * *

><p><strong>Give Me A Moment<strong>

* * *

><p><em>So slide over here<br>and give me a moment.  
>Your needs are so raw.<br>I've got to let you know.  
>~Need You Tonight, INXS<em>

* * *

><p>Rachel doesn't mind it so much in the morning. She has to get to the theater before the matinee after all, and while she certainly would prefer having an actual conversation with her girlfriend over the vegan French toast that she'd finally learned how to make correctly—well, she does still need to learn how to get those first few pieces off the skillet before they burn—she finds watching Quinn juggle eager bites of her breakfast between typing one-handedly on her laptop to be impossibly adorable. And Rachel does manage to get Quinn to look up from her screen long enough to receive her <em>have-a-great-show kiss<em>. (They aren't goodbye kisses because they never really say goodbye—only _see you later, baby.)_

Rachel doesn't typically come home between performances on her two show days. Their apartment is close enough to make it possible, but it's rarely sensible. Sometimes she runs a few errands or browses in some nearby shops, and other times she just crashes in her dressing room and tries to catch a nap. Today she opts for the nap, knowing that being insensible would also be unproductive for her and for Quinn because Quinn is on a particularly creative streak with her novel. She doesn't always have the time or energy to work on it during the week, and Rachel wants to give Quinn the whole afternoon and evening to write without interruption.

After another outstanding performance (of course), Rachel eagerly makes her way home. It's Saturday night, and she absolutely loves that her show is dark on Sunday. It means they get an entire day together, just the two of them, with nowhere else to be. It also means that they occasionally get to turn their Saturday night into a Sunday morning without regard for sleep. She's been thinking about doing just that all day, but when she opens the door, she finds the apartment dark, save for the light seeping out from the bedroom they share.

Smiling, she kicks off her shoes and pads over to the not-quite-closed door—no doubt left that way to allow Oliver to come and go as he pleases without yowling—and peeks inside. She finds Quinn in exactly the position that she expects (and nowhere near the position that she'd been hoping for), hunched over her laptop with her back against the headboard and glasses perched on her nose as she alternately types and pauses to reread the screen before her fingers start moving again.

Rachel touches the door until it opens completely and leans her hip into the frame, thinking that the slight squeak of the hinges and the noticeable change in the lighting will pull Quinn's attention to her, but it doesn't. Frowning, she clears her throat, only to see Quinn's eyes remain focused intently on her screen and her right hand pause from its work to raise slightly, index finger pointing up in silent request for one more minute before returning to the keyboard. Huffing in annoyance, Rachel straightens and stalks over to the foot of the bed, glaring at her girlfriend.

"Quinn," she grunts, crossing her arms.

"One more minute, Rach," is muttered directly to the laptop.

Rachel's eyes narrow. She never wants to impede on Quinn's passion, but she'd given her _all day_ to do this. It's after eleven-thirty and Rachel is home now—it's time for Quinn's _mistress_ to go to sleep for the night. "Unless you've recently named your computer Rach, the flesh-and-blood one in the room would appreciate if you actually met her eyes while you're talking to her."

Quinn's gaze lifts for just a second, eyebrow arching under the frame of her glasses. "Just give me five minutes to finish this scene," and then she's back to typing.

Rachel growls under her breath. First it was one minute, now it's up to five. Soon it will be the rest of the night that Quinn is clickity-clacking away at her keyboard. Rachel isn't exaggerating—Quinn has done this before. Taking a calming breath, Rachel lets her arms fall to her sides and turns on her heel, pacing out of the room and toward the bathroom to undertake her nightly ritual. That should give Quinn ample time to finish her scene.

Oliver circles her feet on the way down the hall, mewling determinedly to gain her attention. "I know. She's ignoring you too," Rachel sympathizes, bending down to scratch behind his ears. He bumps his head against her fingers and then races in the direction of the kitchen, pausing to stare at her expectantly. She laughs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I know. You just want your snack."

She slips into the kitchen and fills his bowl with just enough food to tide him over, taking the time to clean and refill his water bowl with fresh water. Then she heads to the bathroom to go about her own nightly business, scrubbing off her lingering makeup, rinsing, and moisturizing before returning to the bedroom. She wishes that she could say she's surprised to see Quinn is still typing, but she really isn't.

She could (should) be a good girlfriend, slip her pajamas on, quietly crawl into bed, and resign herself to sleeping on her own, cold, lonely side while Quinn spends the night banging her keyboard instead of her girlfriend. (It's possible that Rachel might be hanging out with Santana a little too often.) She could do that—but she won't. She's already spent far too many nights deferring to Quinn's art, and she's about hit her limit.

Grinning impishly, Rachel closes the bedroom door before she pulls her shirt up over her head, tossing it in Quinn's general direction. Well—actually, she throws it straight at Quinn's head, but her aim hasn't improved since she was a child, so it lands harmlessly somewhere around Quinn's feet. The clickity-clacking doesn't stop. Rachel saunters back into Quinn's line of sight (if she were actually looking up) and unzips her slacks, slowly shimmying them down over hips. More clickity-clacking, but Rachel's almost certain that she heard a short pause somewhere in there.

She reaches behind her back and unsnaps her bra, letting it slide down to the floor. The clickity- clack becomes a stuttered clickity-click-click before Quinn inhales sharply through her nose and slams the backspace key multiple times.

Rachel's grin turns to a smirk as she places her palms flat against the mattress at the foot of the bed and crawls up onto it like a cat, practically rubbing against Quinn on her way up to the headboard. The clickity-clacking is growing noticeably slower. Rachel plops onto her side facing Quinn, who is biting into her lower lip with eyes darting in Rachel's direction every few seconds as she struggles to keep typing. Rachel tugs at the sheet and makes a show of lifting her legs up to her chest one at a time before sliding them underneath, taking care to graze her toes along Quinn's calf as she straightens them again.

Quinn puffs out a breath and shakes her head. "I'm almost finished," she promises, almost desperately.

Rachel leans closer to Quinn, resting her cheek against Quinn's shoulder and watching the words appear on the screen. There are dozens of red underlines in the last several paragraphs and more appearing with every stroke of the keys, and Rachel stifles a giggle at the multiple typos. "How much longer, do you think?" she asks huskily.

"Three minutes," Quinn mumbles.

"A lot can happen in three minutes," Rachel muses, pulling away from Quinn and sliding onto her back as she slips her hands under the sheet, dragging it down to her waist, before her fingers venture under the elastic of her panties. She's still deciding between (im)patiently teasing Quinn some more or just starting without her entirely when Quinn slams the cover of the laptop closed.

"Fuck it," she groans, slipping the offending object onto the nightstand and ripping her glasses off. "I can't concentrate with you lying there doing that."

Rachel smiles triumphantly. "That was kind of the plan."

Quinn shakes her head, even as she moves over Rachel's body, ghosting those precise fingers over her naked breasts. "At this rate, I'll never finish my novel," she grumbles good-naturedly.

"You will," Rachel assures her, reaching up to slip her arms around Quinn. "Just not tonight. At least, not until you finish me first," she teases wickedly.

Quinn's lips curve into a sexy smirk as they descend. "Oh, sweetheart, I haven't even gotten started." She slides her hand over Rachel's body and kisses her passionately. The laptop is completely forgotten as Quinn writes a poem of pleasure across her skin instead. Rachel doesn't mind it at all.


	7. She Was Pure Like Snowflakes

**Author's Note: **Set after _Lifelong Long Letter_ and the _If I'm A Fool For Love_ ficlet and before _Forget the Wrongs That I've Done_.

* * *

><p><strong>She Was Pure Like Snowflakes<strong>

* * *

><p><em>She was pure like snowflakes<br>No one could ever stain  
>The memory of my angel<br>Could never cause me pain.  
>~Centerfold, J. Geils Band<em>

* * *

><p>She doesn't Google Rachel's name very often anymore. Reading some of the things that so-called fans say about her wife tends to enrage her more than it makes her smile. It was boredom and a severe case of writer's block that had led her idle hands to type <em>Rachel Berry Fabray<em> into the search bar this afternoon. She'd started with what had appeared to be a relatively harmless link to a celebrity gossip board but had turned out to be a lesbian chatroom with an entire thread about Rachel's relationship with her.

She'd been shocked and a little horrified to see just how many photos of them had somehow made their way onto the internet. There had even been a picture of them with Santana followed by some cringe-worthy jokes about threesomes. (An epic argument had followed that because apparently she and Rachel had fans who insisted that they would never, ever do anything like that because they're soulmates and fated and were apparently virgins when they married.) They obviously wouldn't ever have a threesome, but that's beside the point.

Quinn really should have known better than to click on the link that she'd found on that board, but morbid curiosity had blindly guided her fingers over the mouse. What she'd found on the other end of that link had her clicking back out as fast as possible.

She'd been horrified, and embarrassed, and then just pissed, so of course she'd gone back to the site where she'd found the story to send a complaint and a request to take it down, only to realize that there are about six hundred stories featuring Rachel archived there—and not all of them have Quinn as her willing bed-partner. There are stories about Rachel with her various costars, male and female—sometimes both at once—and a few with celebrities that Rachel has never even met! Quinn is sick just thinking about it, and for the life of her, she doesn't know why she keeps opening links to read them. She thinks it must be the same twisted, fascination that makes people stop to gawk at accidents and murder scenes.

And that's how Rachel finds her when she comes home from the theater, hunched over her laptop in muted horror. "Quinn, baby, are you okay?" Rachel asks in concern, resting her hands on Quinn's tense shoulders.

"No," Quinn mutters, still staring at the screen. "I could have gone a lifetime without knowing what watersports are."

"Watersports?" Rachel echoes in confusion. "You mean like swimming and water polo."

Quinn laughs a little deliriously. "No. Nothing like those at all."

Rachel leans over her shoulder, squinting at the screen. "Are you doing research for your novel?"

"I wish. The chapter I wrote you as a joke isn't even as bad as some of this," Quinn grumbles, gesturing to the screen.

Rachel's brows furrow as she reaches around Quinn and moves the screen so she can read without the glare from the light. After several silent minutes, she gasps, "Oh, my God! I would never! And Pauline is straight anyway. If I would have hooked up with any costar during _West Side Story_ it would have been Jessica."

Quinn turns her head and glares at her wife. "Excuse me?"

"Well, Jessica is gay. And, let's face it, she isn't exactly picky."

"That's so not the point," Quinn snaps. "People are writing tons of this…this drivel about you."

Rachel's eyebrows lift in undisguised curiosity. "Tons? There's more."

"Rachel!"

"Is it all about me and Pauline? Or Maria and Anita, rather?" she questions eagerly, tapping the mouse to browse the site.

"I can't believe you," Quinn says in exasperation. "Do you not care that people who have never met you are writing about you having weird, kinky sex with people we actually know?"

Rachel frowns. "Well, when you put it like that," she concedes, her frown deepening. "That is kind of unsettling."

"Tell me about it. The ones about us are the worst."

"There are stories about us?" Rachel asks, surprised. "Like _you and me_ us?"

"That's generally what _us_ means," Quinn comments wryly.

Rachel's jaw clenches and her lips thin as she glares at the screen. "I don't want people sexualizing you for their own amusement and putting it out into the public domain," she grits out.

Quinn doesn't know whether to be touched or irritated that her wife is more defensive about this fanfiction stuff when it's focused on Quinn when she doesn't seem to mind so much on her own behalf. "And now you know how I feel."

"I'm going to write a strongly worded email to this awful site and demand they take these down. I'll call the ACLU if I have to!" Rachel insists, grabbing the laptop away from Quinn and clicking through to the contact us link.

"My hero," Quinn quips on a chuckle, feeling strangely calmer about the whole thing now.

Rachel darts her eyes in Quinn's direction as she begins to type. "Just out of curiosity, exactly how many of these did you read?"

Quinn feels her cheeks heat. "A few," she admits, downplaying the actual number.

Rachel's lips quirk into a sly grin. "Did you happen to pick up any interesting ideas along the way?"

Quinn clears her throat and ducks her head. "I'll tell you about them later," she murmurs.

Rachel's laughter rings out over the sound of her typing, and Quinn rolls her eyes, dropping her chin into her palm as she watches her wife defend their honor. She's never Googling Rachel's name again.

Okay, she probably will, but she's sure as hell not clicking on any unknown links. She doesn't need to read about some fantasy version of Rachel—she's got the real thing.


	8. You Make Me Feel

**Author's Note: **Set between U_nder Every Scar_ and _Just Give Me A Little Bit More_. Slightly expanded from the original drabble but still more teasing than pleasing.

* * *

><p><strong>You Make Me Feel<strong>

* * *

><p><em>You make me feel like a candy apple,<br>red and horny.  
>You make me feel like I wanna be a dumb blonde<br>in a centerfold, the girl next door.  
><em>_~Feelin' Love, Paula Cole_

* * *

><p>Rachel lets herself into Quinn's apartment with the key that Quinn had given her. It's been a long day, and they'd had a minor snafu with the third set change during the evening's performance, and she's so ready to leave this day behind her. Imperfect shows always put Rachel in a funk, and she really just wants to crawl into bed and cuddle up to her girlfriend. The apartment in dark and quiet, and Rachel kicks off her shoes and sheds her jacket before she pads to the bedroom and cracks open the door, peeking into the pitch blackness of the room.<p>

She tiptoes inside, careful to be quiet because Quinn is obviously asleep, and twists her hands into the hem of her shirt, ready to tug it up over her head when two arms unexpectedly wrap around her from behind, pinning her hands down against her sides. Rachel jumps in surprise, letting an embarrassing squeak slip past her lips as her heart stutters and trips from the unexpected burst of adrenaline. "Quinn?" she gasps, hoping it's her girlfriend and not some serial killer lying in wait to murder up-and-coming Broadway starlets. The body pressed against her back certainly _feels_ like her girlfriend.

"Shh," Quinn coos against her ear, making her shiver. "Come here," she murmurs, gently spinning Rachel around.

Relieved that it is, in fact, Quinn who's holding her, Rachel gladly complies, slipping her arms around Quinn's waist and melting into her as she eagerly seeks out her mouth for a very welcome kiss. But Quinn's lips only ghost over hers with the softest caress, curving into a smile before she pulls away. Rachel huffs in muted annoyance at being deprived of Quinn's talented mouth, but Quinn is already urging her back until her legs bump against the chest at the foot of her bed. "Sit," Quinn orders, giving Rachel's shoulders a gentle push.

Rachel frowns, but does as Quinn requests and sits. The room is still dark, but Rachel's eyes have adjusted just enough for her to see Quinn's form in the shadows.

"Stay," Quinn commands.

"What am I? A dog?" Rachel questions, only half-jokingly.

Quinn laughs lightly and steps around her, walking to the nightstand beside the bed. Rachel cranes her neck around in an attempt follow Quinn's movements, but suddenly, the room is filled with a smooth, sexy beat, and Rachel's breath catches even before Quinn snaps on the lamp and turns, revealing her body clothed the short skirt and fitted jacket of one of her business suits, paired with black, fishnet stockings and high heels.

"Quinn," she rasps, pressing her hands down into the hard wood beneath her to keep herself from tipping forward and sliding off the chest in shock.

"Patience," Quinn warns with a sexy smirk, swaying her hips in time with music as she dances around the bed, just out of Rachel's eager grasp. She clicks on a second lamp on the dresser, bathing the room in a soft glow before she returns to stand in front of Rachel. "You did say that this was one of your fantasies," she reminds her as she closes her fingers around the bottom button of her jacket and slips it free.

Rachel whimpers softly, her eyes hopelessly glued to Quinn's every, sensual movement. Long, skilled fingers move certainly up over the material, popping buttons one by one, until the jacket falls open. Quinn slowly lets it slide off her shoulders, playing hide-and-seek with the skin beneath while Paula Cole sings about feeling the Amazon running between her thighs. Rachel completely sympathizes, feeling exactly the same way as she watches Quinn finally—_finally!_—allow the jacket to slide all the way down her arms, catching it on her fingertips.

Quinn smirks knowingly as she tosses it to the floor, moving her hands on a slow path over the toned, pale skin on display beneath the lacy, black bra that accentuates her breasts to perfection. Then she spins around to give Rachel an eye-level view of her ass encased in that sinful skirt—hips still swaying in slow, voluptuous movements. Quinn turns her head and glances back over her shoulder, watching Rachel's face as she sinks down into a low dip in time with the music before rising back up and reaching around for the zipper of the skirt.

"Oh, my God," Rachel whispers, barely believing that this is really happening, even when the skirt loosens and Quinn shimmies it down over her hips, revealing the tiniest pair of panties that Rachel has ever seen her girlfriend wear and—Holy Barbra!—a garter belt holding up those stockings.

Quinn turns around again, dancing closer to Rachel. "Like what you see?" she asks coyly.

Rachel's hands come up to Quinn's hips, feeling them sway back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm.

"You are so sexy," she murmurs in awe.

Quinn straddles Rachel's waist, sinking down and dragging her own hands over Rachel's very awake and eager body. "And all yours tonight," Quinn husks, leaning down to nip Rachel's lips.

Rachel moans, gripping Quinn's hips more tightly and trying to deepen the kiss, but Quinn laughs and evades her attempt, slipping back off of her lap to a groan of disappointment. But then she's dancing for Rachel again, moving her body in the most erotic way, and Rachel decides that maybe it really is all about the teasing—though she's sure they'll get to the pleasing before the night is through.

They'd better get to the pleasing, because there's no way Rachel is going to be able to sleep after this without finding some kind of release. The song that Quinn had chosen to accompany her striptease is only exacerbating Rachel's state of arousal—she makes a mental note to ask Quinn where she found it because Rachel is definitely going to want to hear this one again so she can come back to this moment over and over and over.

Quinn reaches behind her back to pop open the strap of her bra with one talented hand before she lets the straps slide down her arms and carelessly tosses it away. Rachel's mouth goes dry, and then she's left nearly breathless when Quinn gracefully spins around and sinks down onto her lap, curling her hands around Rachel's thighs to brace herself as she rolls her hips back. Rachel whimpers, biting her lip as she wraps her arms around Quinn from behind and glides her palms over Quinn's smooth skin until she's cupping her breasts—fingers brushing against hard nipples. "I can't believe this is happening," Rachel breathes out loud this time and presses her lips against Quinn's shoulder.

Quinn chuckles again, low and throaty, before she quietly sings, "You make me feel love, love, love," along with the music.

Rachel shudders—the husky tones of Quinn's voice vibrating through her body and settling heavily into every one of her pulse-points. She drags one hand away from Quinn's breast, down over her stomach until she can slip it between Quinn's thighs, making Quinn stutter over the words to the song.

Quinn encircles Rachel's wrist and gently guides it away from her body, slipping out of her eager grasp only to turn around and straddled Rachel's lap again, leaning down to capture her mouth in a heated kiss. Rachel groans in pleasure and molds her palms to the curve of Quinn's ass, pulling her as close as she can while Quinn continues to rock her hips in time with the music. Rachel barely even hears it anymore, too consumed with the feel and taste of Quinn spilling over her. Her fingers catch on the elastic of Quinn's garters, and she scrapes her nails against the clasps, attempting to pop them open.

Quinn eases her lips from Rachel's mouth away ever so slightly. "You're not being patient," she chastises gruffly, closing one hand over Rachel's.

Rachel determinedly frees one clasp despite Quinn's effort to stop her. "You're not currently naked with my head between your legs, so I think I'm displaying considerable restraint," Rachel argues breathlessly.

Quinn's eyelids flutter. "Fuck," she hisses, her head tipping back and her hips jerking erratically.

"Yes, please," Rachel begs, dipping her own head to suckle the tempting skin of Quinn's elegant neck.

Anymore teasing and she just might spontaneously combust right here under Quinn's very talented body—and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, Rachel really wants to enjoy some mutual pleasing before Quinn completely reduces her to a quivering mess. Thankfully, Quinn seems to be on the same page, twisting her own fingers into the hem of Rachel's shirt and dragging it up. Rachel only leans back far enough to let Quinn pull the material over her head before her mouth is back on her girlfriend's body.

"You're not wearing a bra again," Quinn murmurs as she lightly scrapes her nails over Rachel's back.

"One less thing for you to take off," Rachel mumbles against her skin.

A sultry laugh tickles against her ear. "But I enjoy stripping you as much as I enjoy stripping _for_ you."

Rachel shudders again, closing her eyes in silent praise of the goddess on her lap before she pulls Quinn close and kisses her senseless. She's definitely feeling love—and so many other really amazing things—and she plans to spend the rest of the night making sure that Quinn feels exactly the same way.


	9. I'll Pick A Star From the Sky

**Author's Note:** Drabble set after _Forget the Wrong That I've Done_.

* * *

><p><strong>I'll Pick a Star From the Sky<strong>

* * *

><p><em>And you, you'll be blessed.<br>You'll have the best.  
>I promise you that<br>I'll pick a star from the sky.  
>~Blessed, Elton John<em>

* * *

><p>It takes three weeks for Rachel to buy the book. Quinn doesn't rush her because she knows that her wife still finds it difficult to reconcile the relationship that she now has with Shelby to the one that she'd once wanted so desperately. The quilt that Shelby had given them has been sitting neatly folded on a shelf—far away from curious paws—since the day they'd brought it home. The books that Rachel <em>has<em> purchased over the last six months have been steadily stacking up on shelves, coffee tables, night stands, and even—much to Quinn's amusement and mild horror—on the tank of the toilet in their bathroom. She's determined to read every word in order to help them (her) create the perfect pre and post natal experience for their baby.

Quinn mostly thinks it's adorable—except when she doesn't. Her hormones aren't being much kinder to her with this pregnancy than they had been when she was sixteen, and Rachel has a tendency to be more than a little anxious over every minor mood-swing, but Quinn hasn't managed to scare her away yet, and she knows that she won't. Rachel is completely, one-hundred percent in this with her, and Quinn loves her all the more for it—especially when her equally unpredictable libido kicks in. Rachel has been very, very good about that.

So when Rachel comes home with a bag from the local craft store and shows Quinn the _Joy of Quilting_ book that she's purchased along with several potential patterns—two with kittens that look vaguely like Oliver, another with five music notes seamlessly formed into a star, one of Alice in her familiar blue dress, and yet another of a gardenia surrounded by green leaves—Quinn's damned emotions go haywire, and she finds herself sobbing as she clutches the book and the patterns to her chest. She can so clearly envision their baby daughter—the one that Quinn will get to keep and hold and raise together with Rachel—happily lying across the quilt that will forever be a part of their family now.

Rachel shifts closer, holding her gently. "Do you hate them?"

Quinn shakes her head and gazes tearfully at her wife. "I love them. They're perfect."

Rachel smiles a little shyly. "Well, we can't use them all. I'm not even sure that we'll be able to successfully complete one of them."

Quinn wipes at those blasted tears before she hazards another look at the patterns. Thankfully, her emotional rollercoaster seems to have come into the station for a little while. She loves the _Alice In Wonderland_ pattern—it was one of her favorite childhood stories, and now it always makes her think of that perfect first kiss that she and Rachel had shared on a warm, summer day—and the musical star is just so very Rachel. But she keeps coming back to the gardenia, thinking of high school and secret love and their wedding day. She can already imagine it set just off center in a light green square and blending perfectly into the green and white quilt.

"This one," she murmurs with a soft smile, tracing her fingers over the pattern.

"Are you sure?" Rachel asks uncertainly.

"Yes," Quinn confirms with a confident nod. She's certain that she can get it just right. She feels their baby gently kick her from inside, and she grins, dragging Rachel's hand to her belly. "Our daughter agrees."

"Well, we certainly can't argue with that," Rachel concedes with sparkling eyes, pressing her palm flat and chasing the movement under Quinn's taut skin. The besotted smile on her lips never fails to make Quinn's heart feel like it's too big for her chest, and another wave of happy tears prickles behind her eyes.

Chuckling wetly, Quinn lets go of Rachel's hand, not surprised at all when it stays firmly pressed against her ever-expanding baby bump, and opens the book to begin paging through it. She has a little more than two months to figure out how to add a patch to that quilt, and she's damned well going to do it perfectly. Their little girl deserves nothing less.


	10. Hungry For the Meeting

**Author's Note: **Set after _Dust On Every Page_ and before _Every Hour Has Come To This_.

* * *

><p><strong>Hungry For the Meeting<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Hungry for the meeting,<br>the dinner we'll be eating,  
>wine that we'll be drinking,<br>and kinky thoughts I'm thinking.  
>~Happy Meal, The Cardigans<em>

* * *

><p>The recipe seems easy enough—penne pasta with herbs, tomatoes, and peas. Rachel thinks that she can manage it without incident. She's finally gotten the hang of cooking the pasta to the desired consistency after several frustrating attempts that had her either turning the entire pot into a big pile of mush or forcing her girlfriend to swear that she preferred her noodles extremely al dente in between every crunchy bite. She just needs to make certain that she keeps checking them diligently instead of allowing her attention wander to the countless other distractions that usually precede all of her major kitchen disasters.<p>

She's made sure that there are no distractions.

Oliver is napping in the guest bedroom.

Quinn is at work, running herself ragged as she tries to keep up with her job responsibilities at the same time that she's working with her own editor and agent to get her first book to print. She'd officially gotten the agent late last year, not long after she'd finished her manuscript, although she'd pretty much had Devon sold with the early chapters that she'd shown him while she was still finishing her final draft. Selling the book to an editor had happened quickly after that. It helped that Quinn has made so many contacts in the publishing business through her job, and it certainly didn't hurt that her finished product had been pristinely edited. That's kind of her thing, after all.

Quinn isn't quite ready to quit her day job and start writing full-time, but she is beginning to talk more and more about the possibility of resigning as an editor and doing freelance copyediting instead. She already has the references and the good reputation. Meanwhile, Rachel is currently between shows—_again!_—but Evelyn has gotten her some voiceover work to tide her over while she waits to see if the rumored revival of _Funny Girl_ is actually a go this time. Evelyn has strict orders to get her an audition as soon as the production gets the green-light.

But for now, Rachel has nothing to pull her concentration away from the task at hand. She'd printed out the recipe this morning, and after poking around the kitchen cabinets to see what ingredients she already had versus the ones she needs, she'd gone to the market, list in hand, to buy the necessary supplies to make a perfect meal for Quinn. She'd also picked up a nice bottle of Chardonnay on the way home to pair with their dinner. Now all she has to do is get everything cooked and ready to be eaten by the time Quinn gets home.

Rachel scrapes her hair back into a ponytail before she takes a deep breath and dives in to the food preparation. She starts with the salad because—well, it's a salad. She's an expert at tossing those together. Then she puts a pot of water on the burner and brings it to a boil while she rummages around for a skillet. To her distress, Quinn has about seven of them in varying sizes, and Rachel frowns as she studies the different colors and textures. Hmm, well—the recipe calls for a non-stick skillet, so Rachel runs the pads of her fingers over two of the largest ones, but neither of them really feels less sticky than the other. She ultimately opts for the smoother of the two, laying it on the countertop as she checks on the water. Seeing that it's come to a boil, she dumps the penne in, jumping back with a squeak when the water splashes out and causes the flame beneath the pot to hiss.

"Okay…okay. Just slow down and take your time," she reminds herself.

Squinting at the recipe, Rachel begins to measure out the ingredients, stopping to check on the penne—still not cooked—before she slices the garlic cloves and tomatoes. Once she has enough to fill the recipe, she unwraps the fresh block of parmesan cheese and slowly drags it over the grater, careful to keep her fingers away. She doubts that Quinn would appreciate Rachel using her blood as a zesty pasta spice any more than Rachel would appreciate ending up in the emergency room to get stitches for an injury by kitchen utensil.

She pauses to check the penne again, noting that they're almost done, but still slightly al dente, so she adds in the cup of green peas to the water just like the recipe calls for and sets the timer for two minutes. She decides not to push her luck by multitasking anything else before the pasta and peas are done, so she leans against the counter and waits out the two minutes while she rereads the rest of the recipe three times.

Once she removes the pasta from the heat and drains the water—she'll totally clean up that puddle on the floor in a minute—she puts the bowl aside and turns her attention to the skillet, placing it over the heat and adding in the olive oil to coat it. Then she adds the garlic cloves and sets the timer for four minutes, stirring occasionally as the garlic turns brown.

Then it turns black.

Rachel frowns, reading over the recipe again with the spatula suspended over the skillet and noticing that it says four minutes _or_ until brown. "Damn it," she mutters, glancing back at the stove, only to see the smoke pouring off the skillet. "Oh!" she squeals, quickly pulling it off the stovetop and racing to the sink where she drops it and waves away the smoke, trying to survey the damage. The garlic is a blackened mess, sticking to the bottom and sides of the skillet, and Rachel braces her hands on the sink and bows her head dejectedly.

"Son-of-a-bitch."

How hard is it to brown some freaking garlic?

Sighing, Rachel attempts to dump the mess out of the skillet so that she can start over—she'd been proactive enough to buy extra ingredients just in case. Unfortunately, the skillet doesn't quite come clean, so she runs it under the faucet and begins to scrub at it with the spatula, and when that doesn't work, a cleaning sponge. The black scorch marks don't lesson, and with a sinking stomach, she realizes that the skillet is ruined. She takes a trembling breath and stares at the damnable skillet for a full minute while she debates what to do.

"I'll just buy her a new one," she reasons with a stubborn nod, turning the skillet face down on the towel next to the sink. Or maybe she'll just throw it away later. Quinn has six more of them—she'll never even notice.

"I can do this," she insists with a determined frown, pulling out the other large skillet and placing it on the stove. She adds the oil and swirls it around. Then she carefully slices the remaining garlic cloves before adding them to the skillet and watching them like a hawk. The moment they turn brown, Rachel tosses in the tomatoes and slowly turns up the heat. Everything seems to be sizzling but not scorching, so she decides to add in the pasta and peas, watching the entire thing cook as she methodically stirs it.

A quick glance at the clock shows her that she has about twenty minutes before Quinn is due home, so she turns off the heat and puts an oversized lid over the concoction to keep it warmish. She can easily reheat it and add in the parmesan after Quinn arrives. Wiping her hands on her jeans, Rachel grabs some plates, silverware, and two wine glasses and quickly sets the table before she rushes back to the stove and obsessively checks under the lid to make sure nothing is suddenly burning. Satisfied, she cracks open a few windows to air out the scent of scorched garlic and disposes of the ruined skillet before she cleans up the bulk of the mess that she made in the kitchen.

With a little time to spare, she retreats to the bedroom and puts on a fresh shirt before brushing out her hair, and when she hears Quinn's key in the lock, she skips out to see her exhausted girlfriend dropping her coat and her briefcase in the entryway. "Hi, baby!" Rachel greets enthusiastically, moving to intercept Quinn so that she can brush a kiss over her lips.

"Mmm. Hi," Quinn murmurs, smiling tiredly before her brows furrow. "Is the heat on the fritz again? It's freezing in here," she complains.

"Oh, I forgot that I left some windows open," Rachel apologizes, rushing over to close them again.

"It's the middle of winter," Quinn points out with a frown.

"I know, but it was hot in the kitchen with the stove on," she explains with a grin. Okay—so that isn't exactly the reason they were open, but Quinn doesn't need to know that.

Quinn pauses, staring suspiciously at Rachel. "Why was the stove on?" she asks warily before she visibly sniffs the air. "What's that smell?"

Rachel frowns, taking a few panicked sniffs of her own and worrying that the rancid scent of her snafu is still lingering in the air, but all she smells is—well, "Dinner," she supplies, smiling again. "I cooked for you."

Quinn takes a stunned step back. "You cooked? An actual meal?"

Rachel's smile droops. "You don't have to sound so surprised. I'm getting better at it."

Quinn's gaze drifts to the table, and a slow smile spreads over her lips. "You really cooked dinner for me?" she asks softly, reaching for Rachel, who gladly steps into her arms.

"Penne with herbs, tomatoes, and peas," Rachel proudly tells her as she wraps her arms around Quinn's waist. "So why don't you go change into something more comfortable while I open the wine and get the salad out of the refrigerator. You don't have to do anything tonight but relax and enjoy the food."

"Sounds like heaven after the day I've had," Quinn admits, dipping her head to catch Rachel's lips in a grateful kiss. "I don't even care if you set anything on fire."

Rachel huffs and slaps her ass. "I didn't." There were no flames, after all. Only smoke.

Quinn laughs, breaking away from her girlfriend and heading for the bedroom with her fingers already busily unbuttoning her blazer. Rachel sighs and walks back into the kitchen, setting out the salad and dressing before she opens the wine and pours them both a glass. Returning to the stove, she lifts the lid from the pasta—thank God it still looks and smells okay—and turns the burner back on low heat.

Quinn, having changed into comfortable track pants and a sweatshirt, pads into the kitchen while Rachel sprinkles the parmesan cheese over the pasta. She slides her hands around Rachel's waist from behind as she watches her stir the mixture. "Oh, wow," she breathes, dropping her chin onto Rachel's shoulder. "That looks delicious."

Rachel beams with pride, leaning back into Quinn's body. "I told you I was getting better at this cooking thing."

Quinn hums in agreement, slipping a hand under Rachel's shirt. "And you look really sexy doing it," she purrs into Rachel's ear before placing a kiss to the skin beneath.

Rachel flushes with pleasure, almost melting into Quinn as her head tips to the side, but then she straightens, shaking off Quinn's far too tempting touch. "Oh, no you don't, Quinn Fabray," she chastises, turning around with a playful glare. "I worked very hard on this meal. There will be no seducing me until we've actually eaten it."

Quinn laughs joyfully and pecks Rachel's lips. "So let's eat. I'm starving," she admits with a sexy grin. "And after dinner, you can show me what's for dessert," she murmurs suggestively.

Rachel shivers in anticipation. She already knows that dessert is going to be far more delicious than the pasta.


	11. Dazzled By Her Beauty and Her Crime

**Author's Note: **Set after _Where Your Book Begins_ and before _Just A Little Bit Caught_. A Sarah/Quinn side story featuring Rachel.

* * *

><p><strong>Dazzled By Her Beauty and Her Crime<strong>

* * *

><p><em>From the 27th floor above the midtown roar<br>you were dazzled by her beauty and her crime._  
><em>~New York Is A Woman, Suzanne Vega<em>

* * *

><p>Sarah has never been to New York City. She's only ever seen it in photographs or the occasional film and on every New Year's Eve when she gathers around the television with her parents and her brother and watches the ball drop in Times Square. Every single time, she thinks it's the last place that she'd ever want to be—trapped in a crowd of strangers in the dead of winter and the dark of night, never mind that the dark is filled with tacky neon signs and marquee lights. Most of the films never make it seem any better either, with the crime and the drugs and the thugs. Only her mother's annual viewing of <em>A Miracle On 34th Street<em> had ever made the city seem the tiniest bit romantic. That—and the way Quinn talks about it.

She glances over at her girlfriend with a fond smile, watching the sunlight from the train window play on her face as the miles of scenery fly by outside. Sarah still loses her breath just a little bit every time she looks at Quinn and remembers that they're together—that Sarah gets to hold her hand and kiss her whenever she likes. She reaches across the seat and tucks her hand into Quinn's, feeling warm all over when Quinn entwines their fingers and flashes her a loving smile. The last six weeks have felt like a dream at times, but today, everything is becoming just a little bit more real.

Quinn has been asking Sarah to come to New York with her and meet her friends—well, her high school friends. She's from a small town in Ohio, but somehow, three of those friends had ended up in New York and close enough to visit. Sarah isn't that lucky. All of her friends are still in Michigan.

Sarah hasn't met any of the New York friends yet, though she's heard about all of them. Rachel Berry was even in New Haven last month to visit Quinn, but Sarah and Quinn weren't officially together yet, having only been out on a handful of dates in the two weeks since they'd first met over a Stanford White frame in the Yale art gallery. It had still felt too soon at the time to intrude on one of Quinn's weekend visits.

She's still thinking that might be the case. She's nervous to meet these people, especially when she already knows that she won't have much in common with them apart from Quinn and growing up in the Midwest. Well, maybe Sarah might have something to talk about with Santana Lopez—she's pre-med, so she must have a practical head on her shoulders. Sarah is hoping that they'll be as nice as Quinn's friends in New Haven seem to be. Her roommate, Megan, is sweet, if a little too bubbly at times, and Sarah likes Josie, even if she does think that the woman's Anthropology major seems a little wishy-washy, but at least they have some common interests to talk about. She doesn't really think she will with Rachel Berry or Kurt Hummel.

"We'll be there in about ten more minutes," Quinn points out softly.

Sarah smiles wanly. "Can't wait," she mutters.

Quinn chuckles and squeezes her hand. "You promised to give the city a chance. I really think you'll like it once you're there," she says, leaning closer and dropping her free hand over their joined ones to rub lightly at Sarah's wrist. Goosebumps break out under her touch. "I can't wait to show you the Washington Square Arch in person," she husks.

"I am looking forward to that," Sarah admits with a genuine smile. "And St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"And Grand Central Terminal is pretty impressive too," Quinn adds. "Beautiful. Like you," she murmurs, causing Sarah to blush before Quinn leans in and brushes a soft kiss over her lips. They're on a public train, so Sarah doesn't deepen it, even though she wants to.

Quinn gazes happily at her when they part, and Sarah draws a breath. She falls a little more for Quinn every single day. "Do…do you think your friends will like me?" she asks hesitantly.

Quinn's smile widens. "They're going to love you," she promises easily. "How could they not?"

Sarah nods, feeling a little better at her reassurance, but she's really not any less nervous. They're all supposed to meet for dinner tonight, and Sarah thinks that she can manage to get through that without too much pain. At least she'll have food to distract her if the conversation falls flat. But first, she has to meet Rachel, who'd insisted on greeting them at the station.

When the train rattles to a stop, Sarah stands and grabs their bags off the luggage rack, shouldering her own and keeping Quinn's in her hand, despite Quinn's protest. "I can carry my own bag."

Sarah grins at her. "I know. I'm trying to be gallant."

Quinn shakes her head with an indulgent smile, and Sarah lets her lead the way off the train. And wow—there are so many people! Sarah is already feeling overwhelmed, and they're not even off the platform yet.

Quinn slips her hand inside of Sarah's free one, keeping a firm grip on her as she leads them through the crowd and into the terminal. Sarah can't help admiring the design of the building as they walk, so when Quinn stops abruptly and releases her hand, she's momentarily disoriented. Her attention is pulled to Quinn's back as her girlfriend is wrapped up in an effusive hug by a short brunette.

"Quinn! I've missed you so much."

Quinn laughs into the woman's hair. "It's only been two weeks, Rach."

"Two weeks too long," Rachel argues, letting go of Quinn with a wide smile. "I still think you should transfer to NYU or Columbia."

"Not happening," Quinn refuses with a smirk, easing the sudden knot that had formed in Sarah's stomach at the suggestion.

Rachel's dark eyes finally tear themselves away from Quinn and land on Sarah. Her eyebrows lift slightly, and her smile dims for just a moment before it comes back even wider but somehow less sincere—Sarah's not quite sure how that's even possible. "Hello. You must be Sasha," she chirps animatedly. "Quinn has told me so much about you."

"It's _Sarah_," Sarah corrects her with a small frown. Quinn couldn't have told her _that_ much about Sarah if Rachel can't even get her name right.

Rachel's smile droops again, and she waves her hand dismissively. "Sarah. Of course. How could I get that wrong?" she wonders with a laugh. "In any case, it's so nice to finally meet you. I'm Rachel Berry." She holds out a hand politely for Sarah to take, and when she does, she's met with a firm, swift handshake.

"Nice to meet you," Sarah echoes as she studies Quinn's friend. She's pretty—in an unusual sort of way—and she's wearing a very short skirt and a form-fitting shirt. Sarah somehow feels very underdressed in her faded blue jeans and cozy flannel shirt. Rachel's eyes are currently assessing Sarah in much the same way that Sarah is assessing her. It's a little unsettling, and Sarah kind of worries that Quinn's friend already dislikes her for whatever reason.

"So," Rachel drawls, clapping her hands together. "Shall we drop your bags at my place before we embark on my detailed itinerary for introducing Sash…_Sarah_ to the magnificence of New York City?"

Quinn grins indulgently before shaking her head at Rachel. "Actually, I rented a room at the Manhattan for the two of us," she admits, and Sarah feels her cheeks heat at the unspoken implication that they'd rather be alone.

Rachel's smile disappears entirely. "But you always stay with me," she whines. "I know my apartment is a little on the small side, but I'm more than happy to sleep on the floor."

Quinn's eyes dart to Sarah. "We just figured it would be…easier." Actually, they agreed it would be nice to be completely alone for the weekend without having to worry about any roommates interrupting them. "And if…Peter wants to drop by, he can," Quinn adds almost reluctantly. Sarah frowns at that, noticing that certain tone that Quinn seems to use whenever she mentions Rachel's boyfriend—like she doesn't particularly care for him even though she claims that he's a nice guy.

"He knows you're visiting. He wouldn't just drop by," Rachel assures her with a pout.

"It's already done, Rachel," Quinn says firmly, reaching for Sarah's hand again.

Rachel's lips purse before she nods jerkily. "Well…then…I suppose we should get you checked in," she concedes as they begin to walk. "At least the hotel is right at the top of Times Square, so you can be surrounded by all the wonder of Broadway," she tells Sarah.

Sarah grimaces slightly. "Yay," she deadpans, and Quinn chuckles.

Rachel's lips twitch as she studies the two of them. "I asked Quinn if she wanted me to try to get you tickets to any shows, but she insisted that it wasn't necessary. I argued that _of course_ it's necessary. It's Broadway! You can't leave New York without seeing at least one show."

"Rachel," Quinn warns, reaching her free hand out to casually touch Rachel's shoulder in warning. "Don't push."

Rachel huffs, leaning around Quinn and looking directly at Sarah. "There are so many amazing shows playing right now. I'd be happy to recommend one if you're uncertain which is most worth your time and money."

"I really don't care much for theater," Sarah finally tells her.

Rachel stops walking, planting her feet on the floor and her hands on her hips. "Excuse me?" she questions incredulously.

Quinn sighs, muttering, "Here we go," before she stops too, casting Sarah an apologetic look as she lets go of her hand again. "It's really not that big a deal," she defends when she turns to Rachel.

"Not a big deal? Not a big deal! It's my livelihood," Rachel insists, throwing her hands out dramatically.

"You're still in school," Quinn reminds her.

"A technicality," Rachel counters petulantly. "How can you not like the theater?" she asks Sarah.

Sarah shifts the strap of her bag up higher on her shoulder before juggling Quinn's bag to her other hand. Her eyes dart to Quinn before she takes a breath and admits, "I just think it's generally dull and unproductive, and there are more valuable ways for a person to spend their time."

Rachel gapes at her before sputtering, "But…it…it's art! It's…culture. It's visual storytelling!"

"Rachel," Quinn warns again, harsher this time. "Let it go."

Rachel huffs, crossing her arms. "Fine. To each their own, I suppose," she concedes snippily, beginning to move forward again. "I had thought that we could stop to grab a bagel and some coffee in this little shop nearby while we chat. You do like coffee, don't you?" she checks with Sarah in a slightly condescending manner.

"Yes," Sarah answers with a frown.

"Coffee sounds great," Quinn tells her agreeably, and Rachel smiles again, seeming to relax as she walks next to Quinn and immediately begins to chatter about something that happened in her classes this week.

Quinn gently pries her bag from Sarah's grip and shoulders it before she presses her hand back into Sarah's and squeezes it reassuringly. Sarah follows along, not having any idea where they are or where they're going as they cut through crowds of people at every turn. So far, she's not particularly impressed by New York or by Rachel Berry, and she can't quite figure out what Quinn sees in either one of them. But she supposes that she still has an entire weekend to try to figure it out.


	12. Just Get Dancey

**Author's Note: **Drunk!Quinn drabble set directly after _The Heart Is A Bloom_.

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><p><strong>Just Get Dancey<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Don't be fancy,<br>just get dancey.  
>Why so serious?<br>~Raise Your Glass, P!nk_

* * *

><p>"You were…so…so annoying in high school," Quinn grumbles over rim of her third Long Island Iced Tea.<p>

Rachel's hand falters in its persistent movement higher and higher on Quinn's thigh. Her own Mai Tai has been mostly forgotten on the table next to Santana's abandoned Margarita and Josie's Black Russian. The two of them are currently out on the dance floor, grinding against one another in time with the throbbing bass and leaving Rachel and Quinn alone at the table that they'd commandeered. Poor Harry didn't have a fake ID, so he and Kurt are entertaining themselves elsewhere tonight while the girls are out on the town at the newest trendy club that Santana had heard about. Rachel had been keeping herself entertained by feeling up her girlfriend under the table until she was so rudely stopped by Quinn's petulant—slightly inebriated—tone.

"Ec-excuse me?" Rachel stutters.

"Annoying," Quinn repeats with a frown. "You…and your…your stupid voice. Always talking. And…and singing," she spits, leveling her bleary gaze on Rachel as she drags her fingers through her messy hair. "And I…I couldn't get it out of my head," she accuses, pointing a finger at Rachel. "And…and God! Your stupid skirts. And those fucking legs. Those legs," Quinn repeats breathily, glazed eyes dropping down as she leans forward and plants a hand on one of Rachel's legs. "These…these were such a distraction." Quinn complains—or reveres. Rachel can't quite tell the difference right now. Quinn's head comes up again and she scowls at Rachel. "I almost fell off the pyramid because of you!"

Rachel nods slowly, still struggling to take in Quinn's words. She's admittedly having trouble concentrating on them over the mesmerizing motion of her perfect, pink lips. But it looks like Quinn is upset with her, and she really doesn't want that. She hates when Quinn is upset with her. Especially if it means that Rachel will have to stop touching her. "I'm…sorry?" she offers.

Quinn flashes a wide, triumphant smile, nodding. "Good. You should be. It's all your fault."

"Okay," Rachel agrees, still mostly focused on her mouth. She really just wants to taste it, but Quinn is dropping it around her straw and taking another sip of her drink, and Rachel bites into her lip to keep from moaning in frustration. She wants those lips to be wrapped around something very different than that straw.

The moment Quinn releases it, Rachel practically crawls into her lap to claim that mouth for herself. Quinn moans into the kiss, brushing her tongue against Rachel's and digging her nails into Rachel's leg. She tastes so much better than the Mai Tai, and Rachel savors the sweet explosion of flavor. Their kisses gradually flow into nips and pecks until Rachel is mostly just nuzzling Quinn's neck, and Quinn hums in pleasure, her fingers flexing and releasing rhythmically against Rachel's hips.

"We should dance," Quinn blurts out, stilling Rachel's movements once again. "We never dance," she accuses, eyebrows furrowing.

"Yes, we do," Rachel argues, staring at her girlfriend in confusion.

"Naked doesn't count," Quinn counters, shuffling Rachel off her lap before she struggles to stand. "C'mon, Rach. We're gonna dance. Right now," she demands, grabbing for Rachel's hand and tugging her up.

Rachel stumbles after her with a frown until they're out in the middle of the dance floor next to Santana and Josie. Quinn pulls her flush against her body, matching every curve together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and Rachel realizes that this is a very good thing. So she slips her hands around Quinn's waist, sneaking one underneath her shirt enjoy the soft, warm flesh beneath her fingertips while Quinn's palms mold to her ass. "This fucking ass," Quinn mumbles, pressing her nose into Rachel's hair. "Made me stare at it all the time."

Rachel tucks her chin onto Quinn's shoulder and closes her eyes, grinning in contentment. "You can punish it later," she promises.


	13. This Time I'm Gonna Slow It Down

**Author's Note: **A _Don't Blink_ side story. Sarah/Josie ficlet set after _Take A Cup Of Kindness_.

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><p><strong>This Time I'm Gonna Slow It Down<strong>

* * *

><p><em>And fools rush in<br>__and I've been the fool before.  
><em>_This time I'm gonna slow it down  
><em>'_cause I think this could be more.  
><em>_The thing I'm looking for.  
><em>_~Please Don't Say You Love Me, Gabrielle Aplin_

* * *

><p>It's Saturday, and Sarah doesn't have to work today. She'd finished transferring all the survey data onto the plans for the Chelsea Blue Project two hours before her deadline yesterday, which means she gets to enjoy the full weekend before diving back into meetings with the project manager and the construction supervisor bright and early on Monday morning. The last place she really wants to be today is back on the seven train heading into Manhattan, but once again, that's exactly where she is.<p>

She self-consciously tugs the edge of her hoodie down a little farther over form-fitting Capri pants, shaking her head as she wonders exactly how she let Josie talk her into this—bicycling the Hudson River Greenway when she hasn't been on a bike in at least four years. She doesn't even have a bicycle—her old one is still back in Michigan, buried in the back of her parents' garage. Sarah had occasionally borrowed her roommate's bike back in New Haven when she'd been in the mood for some exercise or just really late for a class across campus, but she'd never bothered to bring her own with her from home.

"Don't worry about that," Josie had said. "There are rental shops all along the greenway. Just wear bike appropriate clothes."

The problem is that Sarah doesn't really have any of those either, hence the pants that are just a little too tight but still comfortable enough for movement and an oversized hoodie. The late March air is still chilled, especially in the morning, so Sarah thinks that she can get away with this. She does have a tank top on underneath the hoodie just in case the weatherman is right for a change and the temperature heats up this afternoon. A small wallet with her ID and some cash, along with her cellphone and keys, are secured in her pockets, but she feels naked without the messenger bag that's been practically attached to her since grad school.

She transfers to the four train at Grand Central, compulsively checking her pockets to make sure everything is still in place before gripping onto the overhead bar for the trip down to Bowling Green. She's supposed to meet Josie at the Battery Park bike rental on State Street at ten-thirty. As the train rattles downtown underneath Park Avenue, Sarah lets her mind wander over the last two and a half months of her friendship with Josie Deveraux.

She really hadn't known what to expect after the woman had unexpectedly kissed her on New Year's Eve. Part of her thought it had just been a pity kiss—actually, Sarah had spent most of the evening thinking that Josie was only talking to her because she felt sorry for her, but she was mostly just grateful that she had someone to talk to at all. Sarah had managed a few brief, stilted conversations before Josie had arrived, but she can't deny that she'd been silently wondering why she'd agreed to go to the party when staying home and watching the ball drop on television would have probably been more fun for her and certainly less stressful.

The midnight kiss had been quick and chaste, and frankly, Sarah didn't have much time to fully process it before Josie was grinning at her and wishing her a happy new year. There hasn't been a repeat. Apparently, when Josie had extended an offer of friendship, she'd meant_ friendship_, and that's fine with Sarah. Mostly fine. Josie is a very attractive woman, after all, and Sarah can't deny that she's found her eyes wandering on more than one occasion. But Josie is also Quinn's friend, and even though Sarah is trying (and succeeding) to be Quinn's friend as well, the whole being attracted to Josie thing just feels incredibly complicated right now.

In any case, Josie had walked her down to the sidewalk in the wee hours of New Year's Day and made certain that she'd gotten into a cab safely—she'd insisted that Sarah stay away from the subway and the drunken revelers—and even went as far as to pay for the cab ride after exchanging phone numbers and promising to call her for coffee sometime. Sarah hadn't really expected that phone call, but true to her word, Josie had gotten in touch with her two days later to ask when a good time to meet would be.

Since then, they've met for coffee on multiple occasions, had several weekday lunches when both of their schedules had allowed—well, mostly Josie's schedule since she's been the one hopping on the train downtown—and they'd even gone to the Bronx Museum of the Arts to see an exhibit on the influence of Latin American modernist architecture on contemporary art. Josie calls them friend dates. Sarah doesn't quite know what to call them, but she's happy to have someone in the city to spend time with outside of her job.

After what feels like forever, she finally exits the subway (and checks her pockets again) and walks the rest of the way to their meeting spot. The sun is shining, and it would almost look like spring might be just around the corner if she didn't know that there will supposedly be another potential winter blast moving in from the North West early next week. The calm before the storm. There's a cool breeze blowing in from the river, and Sarah is glad that she'd opted for the hoodie, although she imagines that she'll end up sweating before too long.

As she gets closer to the rental shop, she checks her phone for the time and to see if she has any messages, but all she sees is the last text from Josie about an hour ago to verify their "date." She glances around at the people—tourists and walkers and joggers and bikers already out enjoying the beautiful day—and she notices a familiar redhead leaning over a bicycle with her forearms casually slung across the handlebars as she waits. Sarah pulls a hand free from the pocket of her hoodie and waves, and Josie stands up straight, bicycle between her legs, as she smiles and waves back. Sarah takes a breath as she crosses the street, taking in the skintight, cropped bicycle pants that hug Josie's toned calves and the form-fitting, white bike jacket that tops it. Like Sarah, Josie had opted to pull her hair back into a ponytail. Unlike Sarah, Josie appears to be an avid biker—this becomes more apparent when she gets close enough to see that the bike between her legs is definitely not a rental but a high end hybrid.

And then the bike isn't between her legs anymore because she's sliding off of it and putting down the kickstand so that she can greet Sarah with a happy, "Hey, you made it in pretty good time."

"Yeah. I happened to hit the trains just right today." Sarah glances at Josie's bike again, noticing the little bag attached to the frame just beneath the seat and the mounted water bottle. "I'm guessing you didn't take a train."

Josie laughs, shaking her head. "I rode down the greenway."

"From Chelsea?"

"It's only a twenty minute ride," Josie points out with a shrug.

"Only twenty minutes," Sarah echoes flatly. "You do realize that I probably won't be able to keep up with you today," she warns, already feeling like this could be a disaster.

Josie waves off her concern. "I'm not planning to race you. We can just enjoy the day and the scenery, maybe stop for lunch somewhere. It'll be fun."

Sarah can't help the little smile the comes to her lips at Josie's faith in that declaration and the way her eyes sparkle with anticipation. "Okay," Sarah agrees with a nod. "I guess I should get a bike," she reasons, digging out her small wallet and starting for the shop, but Josie closes a hand over hers and steps into her path with a shake of her head.

"It's already taken care of," she informs her. "I reserved you a bike yesterday when you agreed to come."

Sarah feels her cheeks heat slightly. "Josie, you didn't need to do that."

Josie grins. "Actually, I did. The bikes tend to get picked over fast on a weekend. I got a comfort bike for you, since you said you haven't been on one in a while."

"Thanks," Sarah murmurs, following Josie over to the guy manning the rentals and listening as she gives him her reservation number.

The bike the guy wheels out for Sarah isn't anywhere near as nice as Josie's, but it looks like it's in good shape, and when she slips her leg over the frame, she's happy to find that it's a good size for her and the seat is relatively comfortable, all things considered. The bike has a little bag with a Bike and Roll logo attached to the handlebars, complete with a bike lock and key, so Sarah takes a moment to empty her pockets and slip her wallet, phone and keys into the bag too.

"Ready," Josie asks with an eager grin, mounting her own bike once again. When Sarah nods, Josie instructs her to, "Just shout if you need to stop."

They push off and head down into Battery Park with Sarah following behind Josie. It takes a minute or two for Sarah's sense of balance to fully kick in, but she supposes that people compare remembering old skills to riding a bicycle for a reason because it doesn't take very long for her to feel comfortable riding again. Of course, once she stops worrying about tipping the bike over, she's free to actually start paying attention to the scenery, and the very first thing she notices is the curve of Josie's backside on the bike seat in front of her. Sarah shakes her head and pulls her eyes away from that to actually look at where she is and where they're going.

She has to admit—reluctantly and only to herself—that parts of Manhattan are incredibly beautiful. The bike trail cuts along the river in the park and past the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Rachel Berry pops into Sarah's head unbidden, and she idly wonders if she and Quinn have ever been there before the thought of them slips away completely as Josie leads her along the Esplanade. They leave Battery Park and begin to ride through the cityscape, and the first time Sarah calls out to stop Josie is in Pumphouse Park under the shadow of the Freedom Tower.

"Are you okay?" Josie asks with a concerned frown as Sarah glides to a stop next to her.

Sarah smiles sheepishly, nodding. "Yeah. I just needed to stop for a minute."

Josie watches her in mild confusion while she unzips her bag and digs out her phone, flipping on the camera and pointing it up at the skyline to capture a few photos of the building. Next to her, Josie chuckles as she crosses her arms and waits.

"Sorry," Sarah mutters, ducking her head as she pulls her phone back down.

"Don't apologize," Josie tells her with a fond smile. "I love that you get so excited over the things you love. It's se…" she hesitates and purses her lips for a moment before she finishes with, "inspiring."

Sarah blushes again, not having missed what Josie almost said. She slips her phone back into the bag. "Okay, we can go."

Josie grins and pushes off. Sarah alternates between following Josie and peddling side-by-side with her in the less crowded sections of the path. And her gaze alternates between the waterfront with the Hoboken skyline and the buildings of Manhattan—and occasionally Josie's very nice biking form.

They stop at Chelsea Piers and take a little detour so that Sarah can get up close and personal with the IAC building and it's curved, reflective glass. Josie doesn't grumble even a little when Sarah asks if they can chain their bikes to the nearby rack and walk all the way around the building; she just pulls out her lock and clips her bike in place. As they circle the building, Josie listens to all of Sarah's excited gushing about it and even pulls out her own phone to snap a few pictures.

"You know, I don't think I've ever stopped to really look at this building before," Josie comments. "But it is pretty gorgeous at night."

Sarah glances at Josie to see her gazing up at the building with a thoughtful smile, and she decides right then that she'd really like to come back to Chelsea some night and find out just how gorgeous she is. It!—_it_ is.

They walk back to their bikes and unchain them, riding back onto the trail and continuing uptown. It's already eleven-thirty by the time they make it to Riverside Park, and Josie asks her if she wants to stop for an early lunch. Sarah is feeling a little hungry, so she agrees, and Josie leads them through the park to the bike rack outside of the Pier i Cafe, where there are tables with umbrellas scattered along the waterfront and surrounded by flowers. They chain their bikes, and Sarah fusses with her hair and sweatshirt, feeling decidedly underdressed, although she can see more than a few people walking toward the cafe dressed casually in shorts and t-shirts and jogging and bike gear.

Sarah pushes the sleeves of her sweatshirt up and then tries to casually dab the sweat from her brow. Josie grins at her and offers her a sip from her water bottle, and Sarah accepts it gratefully while Josie unzips her jacket, revealing a glistening layer of perspiration on her chest and—oh. Josie only has a sports bra on under the jacket, so Sarah gets an eyeful of well-defined abdominal muscles, and then she gets an eyeful of more when Josie shrugs off the jacket, dropping it over her bike before she lifts her arm to wipe at her own brow. Sarah nearly chokes on her mouthful of water as her gaze trails helplessly over the curve of Josie's right hip and up along her side where a stylized fox stalks over her pale flesh—its front paw just disappearing beneath the waistband of her bike pants and tail curling under her ribs, partially hidden by the bottom edge of her bra.

"You didn't have that in college," Sarah breathes out. Josie pauses, glancing at her in silent question, and Sarah feels her face heat even more. "The…ah…tattoo. N-not that I was checking you out back then," she rushes out quickly. "But you…you used to jog around campus. I…I saw you a few times…and you…um…the sports bra," she explains lamely, gesturing to her before she passes back the water bottle.

Josie grins a little wickedly, taking the bottle and sliding it back on her bike . "It's okay, Sarah. I did used to flash my midriff a lot back at Yale," she reminds her as she unzips her bike bag and tugs out something blue. "And you're right. I didn't have the tattoo then. I got it after I graduated law school."

"It's…um…nice," Sarah says, shoving her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.

"Really?" Josie questions, shaking out the rolled-up blue material in her hands to reveal a short-sleeved bicycle shirt. "Because I remember you weren't really a fan of Quinn's tattoo. You even made her get it removed."

"She had a tramp stamp of Ryan Seacrest!" Sarah reminds Josie incredulously. "Like you wouldn't have asked her to get rid of that too."

Josie laughs, shaking her head. "Yeah, you have a point," she concedes. "But just so you know, I'm not having mine removed."

Sarah nods slowly. "I…I would never ask you to."

Josie smiles at her then, soft and mysterious, and Sarah's stomach erupts with flutters that she really can't pass off for hunger pangs. "That's good to know," Josie murmurs. Then she tugs the short sleeved shirt over her head, hiding the fox on her skin once again and pulling up the zipper over her breasts just enough to be technically decent before she tightens her ponytail, rolls up her jacket, and tucks it into the bag. She pulls out her wallet, stuffing it into the back pocket of her shirt along with her phone. "Come on. Lunch is on me."

Sarah pulls her eyes away from Josie's body and shakes her head, scrambling to get her own wallet. "You paid for my bike. I'm buying you lunch," she insists.

"No, you're not," Josie argues with a grin as she walks down the path to the cafe. "I asked you out today, so it's my treat."

Sarah's steps falter as she rushes to catch up. "This…this isn't a date," she says uncertainly. It sounds more like a question than a statement even to her own ears.

Josie's lips quirk into an odd half-smile before she sighs. "A friend date," she reluctantly clarifies with a shrug. "I still asked you, so I'm still paying."

"N-no," Sarah repeats, falling back into step with her. "We'll go Dutch." That's the least date-like, after all.

Josie flashes her an impish grin. "We'll see," she chirps, unexpectedly slipping her hand into Sarah's as she tugs her toward the cafe. Sarah tries not to notice how comfortably their hands fit together or how soft Josie's skin is, but it's pretty impossible—as impossible as ignoring that flutter in her belly or how often it keeps happening to her in Josie's presence. In this moment, she can't really say that she wants to. She has a feeling that things are about to get incredibly complicated.


	14. Wash Away What's Past

****Author's Note:**** Ficlet set after _Make It Harder To Be Near You_ and before _Dreaming While I Drove_ (ficlet) and _A Feline Casanova_.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Wash Away What's Past<strong>**

* * *

><p><em>The rain can't hurt me now.<br>This rain will wash away what's past.  
>~A Little Fall Of Rain, Les Misérables<em>

* * *

><p>He doesn't usually pay attention to the musicals that travel through the Kimmel Center. As an athletic trainer on the staff of the Philadelphia Eagles, he's far more concerned with the teams that travel into Lincoln Financial Field. Matt Rutherford's days of singing and dancing are far, far behind him, but that doesn't stop his eyes from catching on a familiar name in the entertainment section of the local newspaper. (So sue him for reading it once in a while after he finishes the sports pages.)<p>

Rachel Berry just isn't someone you can easily forget, no matter how much you might want to. He remembers the little girl with the huge voice—and that fine ass in the those tiny skirts that she'd favored and those little red, booty shorts she'd worn that one time in glee. Hey, he's a guy, after all.

He smiles when he sees her name mentioned in the small article about _Les Misérables_, happy to find out that she'd made it out of Lima and onto a Broadway stage—well, a touring stage anyway. Curiosity is what has him grabbing his laptop to check out the show schedule and ticket prices, but it's the sudden, inspired idea to surprise his girlfriend, Denise, with tickets and create a nice, romantic date night that has him making the impulsive purchase.

He tells Denise about Rachel Berry when he tells her about the tickets. It's not a big deal or some secretive thing—just the chance to watch an old acquaintance make good. Denise thinks he's sweet for wanting to go see his old classmate, and, "I've always wanted to see _Les Mis_," she tells him with a smile, so he puts on his best suit and escorts his girl out for a night on the town—dinner and then the show.

The seats are in the balcony, so they're not close enough to the stage to see every expression on everyone's faces, but there's no mistaking Rachel Berry's voice for anyone else. She's even better than Matt had remembered, but nobody told him how fucking depressing the show would be, or that Rachel's character would end up dead. Denise hands him a tissue as she cries into her own, and Matt takes it quickly, trying to look as manly as possible as he wipes the moisture from his face.

"We should go wait at the stage door," Denise tells him after the show. "I've always wanted to do that."

"I don't know," he hedges. He'd only really known Rachel for a year when he was seventeen, and he'd never really talked to her much—even if they had danced together a few times. "Rachel probably won't even remember me."

"Come on," she urges. "It'll be fun."

So they walk around the Kimmel Center until they find a little crowd standing outside an unmarked door. "Excuse me. Are you all waiting for the cast?" Denise asks a woman at the back.

"Yes. They should be coming out soon," she tells them politely before returning her attention to the door.

Matt and Denise wait in the back of the crowd, and Denise still has her program between her hands and ready to be signed like most of the other people around them. The door opens a few minutes later, and everyone claps and cheers as the actors spill out. Matt cranes his neck and looks over their heads, scanning their faces for Rachel Berry. Even though he hadn't really gotten a good look at her face when she was on stage, there's no possibility of mistaking her for anyone else when his eyes finally find her—and maturity has certainly been very kind to her.

He watches Rachel smile and chat a few moments with every person as she makes her way down the line, signing autographs and getting closer and closer to them with every step until she's finally in front of them. Denise holds out her program for Rachel to take, and she elbows Matt lightly in his ribs when Rachel asks, "Who should I make it out to?"

"Um….Matt and Denise," he tells her softly.

Rachel grins, signing the program before she glances up, and her eyes flash with recognition a few seconds after they land on him. "Matt?" she asks in surprise. "Matt Rutherford?"

He chuckles, impressed that she remembers him. "Yeah."

"Oh, my God!" she squeals, throwing her arms around him unexpectedly and squeezing him tight. "I haven't seen you in so long." She lets him go with a megawatt smile. "You disappeared into thin air after sophomore year."

Matt shrugs. "My family moved."

"You look so good," she compliments before her eyes dart to Denise. "I'm sorry. I'm Rachel Berry," she introduces herself with a friendly smile, as if she hadn't just starred in a musical and signed an autograph for the both of them. "Matt and I went to high school together for two years."

"I know," Denise tells her. "He told me."

Rachel glances around at the rest of the dwindling crowd with a mild frown. "Hey, would you both hang around for a few minutes? I'd love catch up if you have some time. We could go have a coffee or dessert…my treat," she offers hopefully.

"That would be nice," Denise answers, smiling at Matt. "I'd love to hear what this one was like back then."

Rachel laughs and says, "Very quiet," and Matt ducks his head in embarrassment. "We hardly even knew he was there most of the time, but we certainly missed him when he was gone," she muses kindly. "I'll be right back," she promises, quickly moving on to the next person awaiting an autograph.

Matt and Denise step out of the way, waiting just down the block while they watch the crowd gradually dissipate until the only people left are them, Rachel, and a blonde woman that Rachel is chatting with as she pockets her gold marker. Matt frowns a little when they both start to walk in their direction—the blonde is smiling at him, and she starts to look more and more familiar the closer she comes. She almost looks like—but that's the last person she could be—except—holy shit!

"Holy shit," he exclaims out loud, ignoring the back of Denise's hand connecting with his stomach in silent chastisement. But his eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open, because it _is _her. The short hair and the friendly smile had thrown him, but it's definitely, "Quinn Fabray," he breathes out in awe.

Quinn chuckles. "Hi, Matt."

"I guess you remember Quinn," Rachel says with a smile as her palm fits comfortably into Quinn's hand. Matt doesn't miss the easy familiarity of the action, but it won't quite click in his mind. Cheerio Quinn Fabray is standing in front of him holding Rachel Berry's hand—her mortal enemy. And they're not fighting. In fact, with soft smiles and postures speaking of quiet intimacy, they are _so far _from fighting.

"Um…yeah…you look…really good," he stutters. Denise tucks her hand into his elbow and clears her throat, snapping out of his stupor. "Oh, this is my girlfriend, Denise. Denise, this is Quinn. We…um…also went to high school together. With Rachel," he adds unnecessarily.

"It's nice to meet you," Quinn says politely, holding out the hand that isn't linked with Rachel's for Denise to shake.

"What are you doing in Philadelphia?" Matt asks Quinn stupidly.

A secretive smile curves Quinn's lips, and she gazes lovingly at Rachel, who returns the look with her own heart in her eyes as she practically melts into Quinn's side. "Oh, Matt. We really do have a lot catch up on," Rachel murmurs happily.

When what he's seeing finally clicks, Matt can't help feeling like that's the understatement of the century. Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray are together. Like, _together_ together. Like being all coupley right in front of him. Suddenly, he can't wait to sit down somewhere and find out just how in the hell this happened, because he has a feeling it's going to be far more entertaining than the show.**  
><strong>


	15. I've Seen the Light

**Author's Note: **Set after _Getting Crazy By the Bottom of the Bottle_ and the _If I'm A Fool For Love_ ficlet and before _Forget the Wrong That I've Done_.

* * *

><p><strong>I've Seen the Light<strong>

* * *

><p><em>It's giving more when you feel like giving up.<br>I've seen the light.  
>It's in my daughter's eyes.<br>~In My daughter's Eyes, Martina McBride_

* * *

><p>Judy is exhausted.<p>

She'd forgotten what it was like to try to keep up with a ten-year-old, and even with the vague memories slowly coming back to her, she doesn't recall either Frannie or Quinn being quite so rambunctious when they were that age. TJ could probably light up half of Broadway with the energy that he'd expended as he'd raced from exhibit to exhibit in the Brooklyn Children's Museum today. Luckily, Quinnie had been there to keep him from completely disappearing into the crowd of eager children. Still, Judy is glad to finally be back at her daughter's apartment and able to sit down and catch her breath.

At least Frannie won't be able to complain that this trip to New York hasn't been educational—not that she has much room to complain about how Judy has chosen to entertain her grandson when she and _Timothy_ had left TJ in her care for ten days to go sailing off to the Bahamas on a Christian cruise in a last ditch effort to save their failing marriage.

Judy does feel badly about that. She'd been where Frannie is now, clinging to the status quo with sharpened nails cutting into numb skin and senses dulled in a haze of liquor. In some ways, Judy thinks that she was lucky to have her heart shattered by a series of hard blows, one after the other—Quinn's teenaged pregnancy, Russell kicking their baby girl out of the house, and the slaps that Judy had taken across the face every time she'd begged him to bring Quinnie home until she'd finally caught him in bed with _that woman_. Judy finally hit rock bottom in her empty bottle of merlot.

Frannie is still slipping down the hillside, inch by painful inch with her eyes half-closed.

If not for TJ, Judy wouldn't hesitate to wish that Frannie would finally open her eyes fully and leave her husband, but children always make everything so much more complicated. It had taken Judy far too long to realize that sometimes doing what's best for your children means _not _staying and trying to make the marriage work. Frannie isn't quite there yet.

She also isn't quite there with the mending of her relationship with Quinn. She'd refused to attend her sister's wedding to Rachel Berry last summer—thanks in large part to _Timothy_—but at least she'd sent them a gift. And TJ had offered to be his grandma's date, wanting to see his Aunt Quinn—he'd finally stopped calling her Aunt _Lucy _shortly after Judy had moved to Chicago—but _Timothy _had rather adamantly vetoed that suggestion.

So Judy made an executive decision in her role as grandmother and temporary guardian, and she'd bought herself and TJ two tickets to New York City to visit Quinn. And Rachel.

Well—right after she'd called and asked Quinnie if it would be okay if they stayed with them for a few days. Quinn had seemed surprised by the request, and of course, she'd had to check with Rachel before she could say _yes_, but she had, and now Judy and TJ are spending five days with them.

The apartment is a little on the small side with three grown women and an inquisitive child running around, but it's comfortable enough. TJ is certainly enjoying the pull out sofa bed and the cat that has taken to curling up with him for the last two nights.

Judy is glad that her daughter and daughter-in-law have been fairly circumspect with their affections with TJ in the apartment. TJ knows that they're married, of course, and he understands what that means, and what it means that his aunt likes girls the way his mommy likes his daddy. (The way she used to like his daddy, anyway, since Judy isn't so certain how unwavering Frannie's devotion is these days.) Somehow, despite what Frannie and _Timothy_ have tried to teach him about what a family should look like, he's learned to see things with a more open mind. Judy suspects that it's because most of his friends come from families that look nothing like his own, and he likes them all just the same. Still, he _is_ only ten, and Judy isn't prepared to explain sex to him in any incarnation—but especially not _that_ kind.

Still, anyone can see that Quinn and Rachel are happy and in love. Being in this cozy apartment amidst their warm smiles and easy laughter is so drastically different than being in Frannie's big, drafty house with deafening silence filling every room.

Rachel is busy today with something that she'd called a workshop—Judy doesn't know exactly what that means—so Rachel had gone off to wherever it is she goes to do whatever it is she does to prepare for her next show. Quinnie had put her latest novel aside for the day to take Judy and TJ to the museum, and Judy was happy to spend the day with her daughter and her grandson, even if she did feel her heart break once or twice when she'd looked at them together and remembered what Quinn had been forced to give up with Beth. She would have been such a good mother.

Maybe not at sixteen—but then Judy hadn't been a very good mother at forty-something. Sometimes you have to grow into the role, and sometimes it takes much longer than it should.

Quinnie is fussing in the kitchen right now, getting dinner started for them. Judy had offered to help—she's very good in the kitchen, after all—but Quinn shooed her away and into the chair, reminding her that, "You're a guest, Mom. Let me cook for you for a change."

Judy had smiled and agreed, but as she watched Quinn carefully replace the pan that Judy lifted and moved from its resting place before she'd been sent away, she thought of Rachel's whispered warning that, "Quinn is very particular about her kitchen. She notices everything. Even when you think there's no way she could ever miss one little skillet when she has six more of them."

Judy had thought Rachel was exaggerating, as Rachel is prone to do, but now she isn't so certain.

TJ is currently playing with the cat, laughing as he points a laser pen-light around the room for Oliver to chase after like a maniac. Judy knows that one of them will undoubtedly get bored soon enough, and TJ will probably go back to staring at one of those little video games that he carries around with him on his phone. Judy still thinks he's a too young for that, but Frannie insists it's a necessity in this day and age.

Judy watches as Oliver suddenly abandons his chase, ears perking up as he trots over to the door and stares it down. A moment later, the doorknob rattles and turns right before Rachel enters the apartment, and Oliver practically wraps himself around her feet with a demanding mewl.

She reaches down to scratch his ears, and he bumps his head up into her fingers for just a moment before he races ahead of her in the direction of the kitchen.

"Hi, Aunt Rachel!" TJ exclaims, bouncing up onto his knees on the sofa with an excited grin.

"Hello," she echoes sweetly, offering a tired smile to both Judy and TJ before she asks the boy, "Did you have fun at the museum today?"

"So much fun. I got to see a shark's jawbone and build this monster tower out of building blocks," he exclaims with twinkling eyes as he reaches one arm up over his head as high as he can, "and play with all these cool musical instruments. You shoulda come."

"I should have," she agrees easily. "It probably would have been more fun than reblocking choreography all day."

Quinn walks out of the kitchen at that moment with a grin—Oliver following after her with wide, expectant eyes—as she wipes her hands on a towel that she then slings over her shoulder. "Is Derek still being a pri-," she glances at TJ before she changes her word choice to, "perfectionist?"

"Yes," Rachel sighs with a mild pout.

"Don't worry. You'll be wowing him with your talent in no time," Quinn promises, brushing a brief kiss across the corner of Rachel's mouth with casual intimacy. Judy is struck again by how comfortable they are together—so very different from how she'd been with Russell or how Frannie is with _Timothy._

Oliver lets out another mewl as he paws at Rachel's leg, and she sighs as she glances down at him. "I know. I know. No one but me ever feeds you."

TJ giggles while Quinn scoffs. "I fed him thirty minutes ago."

Rachel rolls her eyes. "But you are not _me_," she points out. "We both know that he only believes he's actually been fed when _I_ feed him. It's the only time he loves me."

"Can I feed him?" TJ asks.

Rachel grins down at him. "He already loves you," she tells him, ruffling his hair affectionately. "But you can help me clean out his bowl and get him some fresh water."

TJ flashes a smile and jumps off the sofa. "Cool. I really like Ollie," he says, using Quinn's nickname for the cat. "I really want a dog, but Mom won't let me have one. Cats are pretty cool though," he reveals as he lets Rachel lead him into the kitchen. "But I was asking for a dog, so maybe I should ask for a cat instead."

"Maybe you should," Rachel agrees conspiratorially, glancing back to wink at Quinn. "After all, a cat is how I convinced your aunt to agree to a pet."

Quinn smiles fondly as she watches them shuffle into the kitchen together, and Judy can see the soft look in her eyes. "She's very good with him," she comments.

"Yeah," Quinn breathes out. "With Beth too," she says, momentarily lost in her own thoughts before she shakes her head and looks at Judy with a sudden grin. "How pissed is Frannie going to be when TJ starts begging for a cat?"

Judy chuckles. "I'm sure I'll be hearing an earful about that and everything else when they get back from their cruise."

"Well, you know...you're always welcome here if you need a vacation from them," Quinn offers with a vaguely hopeful look in her eyes.

"I know, dear," Judy tells her gratefully, thinking that perhaps she should try to get to New York more often in the future.

Quinn nods, glancing back toward the kitchen where TJ has somehow transitioned from talking about pets to asking if they can have a _How To Train Your Dragon_ marathon tonight. Rachel's enthusiastic, "I _adore_ Toothless," tells Judy what she'll probably be doing after dinner.

Quinn smiles indulgently. "Dinner should be ready in about twenty minutes," she tells Judy, dragging the towel off her shoulder, and with a sigh, she murmurs, "Thanks, Mom. For...this. I'm really glad you both came to visit."

"So am I," Judy agrees with a smile, reaching out to take Quinn's hand and give it a light squeeze. "So am I."


	16. And Even Better (Deleted Scene)

**Author's Note: **Deleted scene from Chapter Six of _Lifelong Love Letter_.

* * *

><p><strong>And Even Better<strong>

* * *

><p><em> I am underprepared,<em>  
><em>but I am willing,<em>  
><em>and even better -<em>  
><em>I get to be the other half of you.<br>~I Choose You, Sara Bareilles_

* * *

><p>Sarah was right about her night being filled with bad pop music and Broadway ballads, although she has to say that Quinn's musical preferences are getting at least equal play by the band—familiar oldies slipping in between more modern songs—and while Rachel has only taken over the microphone once so far, there's still more than enough time for her to sneak in another performance or two. Sarah does have to admit that her serenade of Quinn was sweet.<p>

She also has to admit that Santana Lopez has a decent voice, as evidenced by her unexpected performance. Sarah kind of wonders how much she's had to drink.

She's met a few more of Quinn's friends from high school, and her opinion that they're all a little crazy is still standing pretty firm. Mostly, she's been spending her time dancing with Josie or chatting with Jason and his wife about the remodeling project that they're planning for their house. But right now, she's waiting for the bartender to pour her two glasses of wine—one for herself and the other for Jo.

"Sarah. Hello. It's nice to see you again," comes a pleasant voice that she doesn't quite recognize, so she turns to look at the smiling man who's now standing next to her at the bar, and it takes her a few seconds for his familiar face to register.

"Oh, hi. Peter," she adds after a tiny hesitation.

He chuckles, nodding in confirmation that she's gotten his name right. "It's been a few years."

Probably six at least, and aside from one long ago dinner that they'd shared with Quinn, Rachel, Santana, and Kurt, they'd only met briefly one other time. Honestly, Sarah probably wouldn't even remember his name if she didn't have him irrevocably associated with Rachel in her mind.

The bartender places Sarah's glasses of wine in front of her, and Peter orders a scotch on the rocks. She's just about to excuse herself when he kindly asks her, "How have you been?"

"Good. I've been good. Working," she supplies. "What about you? Are you...um...still doing Shakespeare, or…?"

"When I can," he answers with a smile. "Right now, I'm doing_ The Dark Heart_ at the Shoenfeld."

Sarah offers him a polite smile, because he might as well be speaking Russian. "That's...nice."

"It's an adaptation of_ Wuthering Heights_, so_ nice_ is probably not the best adjective to describe it," he tells her with a wry grin, and his description tickles against her awareness. She's fairly certain that Josie has mentioned wanting to see some new play based on that novel. "But I know you're not much into theater," he adds.

"Not really," she admits. "I'm actually surprised you remembered that, to be honest."

Peter laughs. "Are you kidding me? I dated Rachel. I had to listen to many a rant about your mission to crush Quinn's artistic spirit," he relays as he picks up his scotch.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Sarah shrugs. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be. I have a feeling that you probably had to hear my name a time or two as well," he says knowingly.

Sarah smiles slightly. "I might have. But to be fair, Quinn never really ranted. She just had this...tone."

"Ah, the tone," he repeats with a nod. "I remember it well. Except Rachel used the tone to call you Sasha for the first two months."

Sarah laughs a little at that. "I remember." It had pissed her off the first time they'd met. Quinn had insisted at the time that Rachel just had selective hearing and didn't really assimilate names until she'd met the person—unless they were a famous performer, and then she had a photographic memory.

"You know, I've always wondered," Sarah begins hesitantly after a moment. "Did you know? Or suspect? About them?" she clarifies unnecessarily. "I mean, we were kind of in the same boat for a while." And she's always wondered if Peter had picked up on Rachel's latent feelings for Quinn in the same way Sarah had with Quinn's for Rachel.

Peter hums and takes a sip of his scotch before he answers. "I can't say that I was enlightened enough to figure it out when Rachel and I were dating. Looking back, I probably should have," he confesses with a shrug. "I can't even tell you how many dates she cancelled every time Quinn so much as mentioned that she might be coming for a visit."

Sarah nods in understanding. "Probably as many as Quinn cancelled to visit her or go see one of her shows."

"And yet here we are," Peter points out with an easygoing smile, gesturing around them to wedding festivities.

"Yeah, here we are," Sarah echoes, still kind of wondering how all of this had happened.

"Better for the experience?" Peter asks.

Sarah glances away from him, unerringly finding her girlfriend and noticing that Josie is on her way over here, and she smiles softly. "Definitely better," she murmurs, knowing it to be true with everything in her as Josie quickly closes the distance between them.

Peter lifts his glass in a toast. "Then here's to us, Sarah Cartwright."

She returns her gaze to him and picks up one of the glasses of wine from the bar, gently touching it to the rim of Peter's scotch. "Here's to us."

"Hey, what are we toasting?" Josie questions with a smile as she slips her arm around Sarah's waist.

"Our mutual amazingness," Peter supplies.

Sarah laughs as she passes the second glass of wine to Josie. "Well, I can certainly drink to that. At least to two-thirds of it," Josie amends with a playful smile as she lifts her glass and takes a sip. "I'm Josie Deveraux, by the way," she introduces herself, releasing her light hold on Sarah's waist to offer her hand to Peter. "I don't think we've ever officially met."

Peter transfers his glass to his other hand and takes her hand in a firm shake. "Peter Kendrick."

"I know," she admits, pulling back. "Quinn pointed you out to me back when you were doing_ A Comedy of Errors_ at the Delacorte. I've read good things about your new show_._ I can't wait to see it."

Peter's smile widens in delight at the revelation. "Ah, so you_ are_ a fan of the theater."

"Very much so," Josie acknowledges.

"We've learned to compromise," Sarah explains with a smile meant for Josie that's immediately returned.

"The cornerstone of every good relationship," Peter murmurs with a nod. "If you're serious about wanting to see my show, just tell Rachel to call me with whatever day you're thinking of attending, and I'll see what I can do about getting you VIP seats," he offers.

"We will absolutely do that," Josie agrees quickly. "Thank you."

Sarah silently groans, but she knows that Josie is thrilled, so, "Yeah, thanks."

Peter bows his head in acknowledgment before he excuses himself to find his date, and Josie slips her hand inside of Sarah's as they watch him walk away. "So that was the infamous Peter," she muses.

Sarah laughs a little as they start to walk back to their table. "About as infamous as I am, I guess," she quips, although it seems to her that Peter and Quinn genuinely get along much better these days than Sarah thinks she ever will with Rachel. Being happy for her today doesn't mean that she suddenly wants to start planning spa days with her—or whatever Rachel does for fun.

"It was nice of him to offer us tickets," Josie mentions with an air of hopefulness in her voice when they sit down.

Sarah still finds theater incredibly boring for the most part, and Josie knows not to expect her to attend any musicals because people breaking into song in the middle of a conversation still feels incredibly ridiculous to her, but Josie does occasionally mention a play that she'd like to see in the hope that Sarah will go with her. It's not really a regular occurrence, so Sarah will usually consider it, depending on the play.

"You should tell Rachel to call him," Sarah indulges with a smile, watching Josie's eyes twinkle with pleasure before she leans in to capture Sarah's lips.

"You're the best," she whispers, and Sarah sighs in pleasure. When the band transitions into another slow song, Josie glances out at the dance floor. "Do you mind if I collect on my dance with the brides?" she asks.

Sarah follows her line of sight, seeing that Quinn and Rachel are beginning to walk back to the bridal table hand in hand. They'd been pretty much monopolized all evening by the other guests, and she and Josie had kept themselves fairly occupied with one another. "You should probably grab one of them before someone else does," Sarah tells her.

"You mean_ we_ should," Josie corrects with a sly grin.

Sarah shakes her head. "I'm not dancing with Rachel."

"You hugged her earlier."

"_She_ hugged_ me_," Sarah argues stubbornly.

Josie shrugs. "Semantics."

"You're a lawyer. You_ know_ that isn't a strong argument," Sarah challenges knowingly.

Josie chuckles. "I know. But I still thought I'd give it a try."

Sarah pats Josie's leg, nodding toward the couple. "Just go dance with Quinn."

Josie smiles and brushes her lips over Sarah's cheek before she stands and walks away, and Sarah takes a sip of her wine as she watches her girlfriend chat with Quinn and Rachel for a few moments before she takes Quinn's hand and leads her out for a dance. Rachel watches them with a grin from her vantage point before she starts to walk in Sarah's direction._ Exactly_ in Sarah's direction—right for her table.

"Damn it, Jo," Sarah curses under her breath, setting her wine glass back on the table just as Rachel tucks the skirt of her dress beneath her and slides into the chair that Josie had abandoned.

"I've been sent to keep you company," she explains with a polite smile.

"You really don't need to do that," Sarah promises. "I'm content to entertain myself, and I'm sure there are a dozen other people here that haven't had a chance to personally congratulate you yet."

"Possibly," Rachel acknowledges with a nod. "But I was also instructed to stay here and not wander off so that Josie can dance with me next."

Sarah laughs, because that sounds exactly like something Josie would say. "So I'm actually supposed to keep_ you_ company."

Rachel purses her lips, biting back a grin. "That was general the idea, yes."

They sit in awkward silence for a moment while they watch their significant others dance before Sarah caves in and asks, "Should we attempt to make small talk?"

"That's never really worked for us in the past," Rachel points out honestly.

"No. It hasn't," Sarah agrees.

Another awkward silence passes before Rachel suggests, "We could always dance," with an inquisitive glance in Sarah's direction. Sarah is surprised by the suggestion, and she knows her eyebrows are somewhere in her hairline. "Or not," Rachel amends with a frown.

"Not would probably be better," Sarah confirms.

Rachel nods slowly as she worries her lower lip. "We're never going to be friends, are we?" she finally asks, and Sarah almost thinks she sounds a little sorry about that, but it's probably just her imagination.

"Probably not. But I think we're kind of stuck with each other at this point," Sarah muses with a small smile. Josie and Quinn are friends, and Sarah and Quinn are friends, and Josie and Rachel are friends, and Sarah is completely in love with Josie—she doesn't see any of those things changing anytime soon.

"There are worse things," Rachel points out with a smile of her own.

Sarah nods in agreement. "Yeah. There are."

After that, they're both content to sit in companionable silence while they watch their_ someones better_ share a dance, knowing that they both get to share their lives with the women they love.


	17. A Token of Tender Emotion

**Author's Note: **Flclet set after _Every Hour Has Come To This_.

* * *

><p><strong>A Token of Tender Emotion<strong>

* * *

><p><em>This tiny ring is a token of tender emotion,<br>__An endless pool of love that's as deep as the ocean.  
><em>_~She Wears My Ring, Elvis Presley_

* * *

><p>Rachel's opening night as Fanny Brice goes off without a hitch, and Quinn couldn't be prouder of her fiancée. Her <em>fiancée<em>. Butterflies take flight in her stomach at the thought, and her gaze automatically falls to the diamond ring on her finger. She drags her lower lip between her teeth in a hopeless attempt to stifle the giddy smile on her face. She's pretty much been useless all day today, unable to write a single word between the distraction of that ring catching the light to create a hypnotizing sparkle and the excitement of the last two days (and the exhaustion of thoroughly celebrating the last two days in very exuberant ways).

The fact that Rachel had delivered such an effortless and brilliant performance on so little sleep is actually pretty impressive. She has a matinee today that she'd dragged herself off to about an hour ago, and Quinn is supposed to be working on her novel, but she has to admit that it's probably a lost cause for the rest of the weekend—especially since she has a very important errand that she absolutely needs to run. In fact, if she can manage to drag her eyes away from this gorgeous ring for more than a few seconds at a time, she might actually be able to get it done today.

Sighing, she moves a very uncooperative Oliver off of her lap, ignoring his disgruntled mewl at being displaced after he'd obviously decided that Quinn had nothing better to do today than to be his personal cat bed. Then she has to change her clothes because her current ones are covered in cat hair. Once that's done, she grabs her purse and heads outside. It's a beautiful day, and she fully takes advantage of the cooperative weather as she walks the long blocks to Fifth Avenue before she turns and heads uptown, engaging in a little window shopping along the way.

Those familiar butterflies come back in a swarm when she reaches 57th Street, and she just stands outside for a moment, staring at the iconic storefront before she takes a deep breath and walks inside. This isn't something that she ever could have imagined doing as a little girl—well, she'd imagined shopping at Tiffany's of course, but not for _this_. She unerringly finds the display case because she's been in here several times before. Unsurprisingly, none of the salesclerks ever really bother to ask if they can help her unless she's looking at something they think she might be legitimately interested in or could actually afford. Seeing her browse the engagement rings alone has never seemed to set off any potential-sale arrows over her head, and that's been fine with her in the past, but today is different.

Quinn taps her nails on the counter for a few minutes, gazing around the store to notice that one of the clerks is currently helping another customer while the other is fussing with the watches in the next area, completely ignoring her. She determinedly steps over to woman, leaning against the counter as she clears her throat. "Excuse me."

The woman glances at her with eyes that quickly rake over her appearance—a modest, blue sweater topping designer jeans—and Quinn can almost see her assessing whether or not waiting on her with be worth her time. I'll be with you in a moment, ma'am," she responds disinterestedly.

Quinn bristles and she narrows her eyes, slipping naturally back into the arrogant, no-nonsense persona that had served her so well in high school and in the publishing business. "I think those watches can wait. Unless you think that I should take my business elsewhere."

The woman—Marian, according to her nametag—purses her lips, offering a thin smile, before she quickly stores the watches back underneath the counter. "How can I help you?"

Quinn grins in triumph, but then her confidence falters for just a moment under the onslaught of sudden nerves, and she licks her lips. "I'm looking for…an engagement ring."

If Marian is surprised by the request, her face doesn't betray it, but her gaze does drop to Quinn's left hand where her own ring is winking up at them, and her eyebrows lift slightly. "Are you returning that one in exchange?" she asks, nodding down.

Quinn reflexively covers her hand, oddly protective of her ring. "No. I want to buy another one. For my fiancée to wear," she answers with a smile.

"I see. Men's rings or women's?" Marian requests neutrally.

"Women's," Quinn tells her unabashedly.

Marian only nods. "Right this way," she instructs, moving along the display cases until they're back at the engagement rings. Quinn has to admit that she's mildly impressed at how completely unconcerned the woman seems with the fact that she's shopping for a ring for another woman. "Do you have a particular style already in mind? Perhaps a similar setting to yours? May I?" she requests, holding out a hand to indicate that she'd like a closer look at Quinn's ring.

Quinn offers her hand for inspection, and Marian tilts her head as she studies it. "Very nice. Your fiancée has exquisite taste," she compliments, and Quinn flushes with pleasure. "I actually sold a ring very similar to this one just last month," she murmurs, glancing up at Quinn with a thoughtful frown as she relinquishes her hand. "Your fiancée doesn't happen to have her face splashed all over several Broadway billboards right now, does she?" she asks a bit warily.

Quinn's lips curl into a smirk. "She might. Did you spend four and half hours making the sale?"

Marian's complexion pales noticeably before she swallows, laughing nervously. "Well, as long as you're pleased with it," she attempts with a questioning lilt at the end.

"Very much so," Quinn admits.

"Then why don't I show the rings that she seemed to be most attracted to while she was here. Perhaps we can expedite the process," Marian suggests hopefully.

Quinn flashes a smile. "I wouldn't count on that. But I would like to see the other rings that Rachel was looking at."

Marian sighs, nodding as she ducks under the counter to unlock the display. She removes two small trays and places them on the glass countertop. Quinn immediately sees the ring setting that she already had in mind, but she isn't about to tell Marian that and pass up the opportunity to look at all of this beautiful bling up close and in person. She might possibly still have a pretty wide materialistic streak in her.

Marian quickly points out two rings that Rachel had been drawn to but ultimately decided weren't right for Quinn. The first is a simple princess-cut solitaire, and the second is the one that Quinn has been eyeing—a round brilliant with two pear-shaped side stones. She silently rejoices at the revelation, but she stays calm and stoic on the outside as she continues to examine the cut, clarity, color, and carat weight of each diamond spread out before her. Her mother would be so proud.

Ultimately, it doesn't take four hours for Marian to make the sale. It takes a little less than two because Quinn questions everything from the accuracy of the carat size to the clarity to how quickly they can have it resized and whether or not that will ruin the setting. By the time they're finished, Quinn has a guarantee that she'll have the ring by Wednesday along with a small discount on the price. It's not much, but Quinn knows how to work a salesperson by demanding things that she can actually live without to make it seem like she's settling for what she really wants. She'd be happier walking out of the store with the ring in her pocket, but Rachel's odd ring-size makes that pretty much impossible.

The hardest part now is waiting.

Waiting—and not telling Rachel.

_xx_

Marian personally calls Quinn late Tuesday afternoon to tell her the ring is ready to be picked up, which is slightly annoying because she only has about forty minutes to get there before the store closes. She doesn't bother to change out of her track pants, grabbing her purse and hustling out of the apartment and uptown while everyone else is rushing to get home for the night. Marian doesn't comment on her mismatched outfit or short, messy ponytail when she enters the store, though Quinn can feel more than one set of judgmental eyes on her. She examines the ring thoroughly before she leaves, more than happy with her purchase.

She keeps a death grip on the box all the way back home, then darts around the apartment like a maniac as she tries to figure out where to hide it for the next twenty-four hours. She and Rachel might already be engaged, but she still wants to surprise her with the ring before she has to leave on her book tour. She's actually a little amazed that Rachel hasn't yet mentioned getting one for herself—Quinn pauses, considering for the first time that Rachel might not _want_ to wear a ring.

"Well, screw that. She's wearing it," Quinn decides with fierce determination, despite those damned butterflies suddenly flittering around in a panic.

She pads to the kitchen with the box still in her hand, ducking down into the cabinet and depositing the box inside her Dutch oven. Despite Rachel's steadily improving kitchen skills over the last few years, she _knows_ her ability hasn't progressed far enough to have her even attempting to touch that particular piece of cookware. The ring will only be hiding in there for a very short time anyway. She just has to keep Oliver from sneaking into the cabinet again. Honestly, she thinks they should just invest in some child-proof locks for their cat.

When Rachel finally comes home from the theatre, Quinn is calm and collected on the sofa where she's attempting to get some writing done. Rachel collapses into her side with a little whine. "I'm so tired," she complains, dropping her head onto Quinn's shoulder. "I could sleep for a week."

Quinn smiles and pats Rachel's thigh in sympathy. "You can rest tomorrow, but not all day. We have dinner reservations."

"We do?" Rachel asks sleepily, reaching down to cover Quinn's hand with her own and idly running the pad of her thumb back and forth over the diamond of Quinn's engagement ring. She's been doing that a lot, and Quinn turns her hand over to link their fingers together with a grin as she closes her laptop.

"We do. We're going to celebrate all of your glowing reviews and our engagement."

"Haven't we been celebrating those all week in private?" Rachel husks, turning her face to nuzzle against Quinn's neck.

"Which is probably why you're so exhausted," Quinn muses.

"Totally worth it," Rachel insists. "I just need to adjust to this schedule."

Quinn hums in agreement, knowing from past experience that Rachel typically does need at least two weeks to get accustomed to a new routine before her normal energy level returns—which, for Rachel, is borderline hyperactive. Leaning forward, she sets her laptop on the coffee table. "Come on, superstar. Let's get you to bed."

"Yes, please," Rachel agrees, allowing Quinn to pull her up from the sofa. She detours to the bathroom to complete an abbreviated version of her nightly cleansing ritual while Quinn turns down the bed, and when Rachel finally comes into the bedroom, she turns off the light and tucks herself into Quinn's side with a quietly mumbled, "G'night, baby."

Quinn sighs in contentment and closes her eyes, silently going over her plans for tomorrow as she drifts off to sleep.

_xx_

Their reservations at The River Café are for six-thirty, and the view of the skyline illuminating the twilight from the windows is absolutely amazing. Quinn probably would have suggested coming here even without the ring because they really haven't had the chance to share a nice, quiet dinner (that Quinn doesn't have to cook) since they'd gotten engaged, and they really do have a lot of things to celebrate. Rachel seems happy, despite grumbling a little about having to leave the apartment at all. They'd spent most of the day just relaxing—and other things not technically relaxing but still involving a bed—so this dinner really isn't an inconvenience at all.

Quinn can almost feel that little blue box burning right through the lining of her purse as they peruse their menus and place their orders. She debates about giving it to her now or waiting until dessert, but she's already waited all day and, frankly, her patience is just about gone. So when the waiter returns with their bottle of Chardonnay and pours them each a glass, Quinn reaches down and retrieves the box, holding it under the table with her left hand.

She lifts her wine glass with a soft smile and toasts, "To us."

Rachel smiles back at her, raising her own glass and gently touching it against Quinn's. "To us."

Quinn takes a quick sip, watching Rachel do the same over the rim of her glass as she slips her other hand onto the table and deposits the box between them.

Rachel sees it as she's putting her own glass back on the table, and Quinn sees her breath hitch slightly even as her brows furrow in mild confusion. "Quinn?" she questions uncertainly.

The corners of Quinn's lips tilt up. "Open it," she urges.

Rachel reaches out and takes the box between her fingers, sliding it closer to her body before she slowly lifts the lid and stares down into the box.

"I know it's a little anticlimactic at this point," Quinn admits quietly, nervously fiddling with the ring on her own finger, "but Rachel, you made me so happy when you asked me to be your wife, so now I'm asking you to be mine." Rachel's gaze flies back to hers then, and Quinn smiles. "Will you marry me and share my forever?" she asks, echoing Rachel's proposal back to her.

"You bought me a ring," Rachel whispers dumbly, glancing back down at the box again.

Quinn laughs a little, nodding. "Do you like it?"

"It's perfect," Rachel breathes reverently, finally freeing the ring from the box with trembling fingers. She looks up at Quinn with glistening eyes. "You didn't have to."

"Yes, I did," Quinn disagrees, reaching across the table to take Rachel's hand. "So will you?" she prompts again. "Will you make me even happier than I already am by wearing my ring?"

Rachel bites into her lower lip, stifling her smile. "I don't know. I'm not really big on jewelry," she lies.

Quinn arches an eyebrow. "Rachel," she warns playfully.

Rachel laughs, turning Quinn's hand over and pressing the ring into her palm. "You have to do it properly," she demands as she holds out her left hand with her fingers spread. "Put it on me."

Quinn shakes her head, holding the ring between her fingers. "You know, you haven't actually said _yes_ yet," she reminds Rachel.

"But you said _yes_ to me last week, and there are no take-backs," Rachel counters, wagging her fingers impatiently.

Quinn shrugs. "Actually, the salesclerk was kind enough to explain the return policy in great detail." She smirks at the memory. "For some reason, she thought you might be hard to please."

"Quinn," Rachel growls in annoyance.

"Rachel, sweetheart," Quinn purrs with a teasing grin. "Just say _yes_."

Rachel softens under her gaze. "Yes, Quinn. Yes, I'll marry you and share your forever, and I will absolutely, very proudly, wear your ring. As soon as you actually put it on me," she adds in challenge.

Quinn smiles sweetly, taking Rachel's outstretched hand and carefully sliding the ring into place, relieved when it fits perfectly. She lifts Rachel's adorned hand to her lips and presses a brief kiss to the knuckles in front of the ring. "Thank you," she murmurs.

"You're thanking _me_?" Rachel asks laughingly as she pulls her hand back to admire the diamond. "Quinn, this ring is absolutely gorgeous." She leans across the table, dropping her voice to a sexy murmur. "If you'd given this to me at home, I could have thanked you for it properly."

"You can thank me later," Quinn promises huskily. Right now, the smile on Rachel's face and the sparkle of the ring on her finger is all that Quinn really needs to make this moment absolutely perfect.


	18. Let the Christmas Spirit Ring

**Author's Note: **A little Christmas ficlet set after _Dust On Every Page_. Faberry's 3rd Christmas.

* * *

><p><strong>Let the Christmas Spirit Ring<strong>

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><p><em>Rocking around the Christmas Tree.<br>Let the Christmas Spirit ring.  
>Later we'll have some pumpkin pie<br>and we'll do some caroling.  
>~Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree<em>

* * *

><p>Quinn has always loved Christmas. Some of her best childhood memories—and really, there are so very few good ones to choose from—are filled with red and green, twinkling lights, eggnog, and carols playing on the radio while she and her mother (and Frannie) danced around one another as they decorated the Christmas tree. Of course, those were the days when Judy Fabray still only enjoyed the occasional glass of wine with dinner instead of polishing off a bottle a day, Frannie was the annoying older sister who still mostly encouraged Quinn—<em>Lucy<em>—to follow in her footsteps, and Quinn still wanted to be just like them. Russell was still strict but loving—silently watching his family from his chair as he nursed his Scotch and read the business section of his newspaper. Every dark undercurrent of tension and unhappiness that was gradually taking root in the Fabray household throughout the rest of the year would always seem to disappear under the bright lights and cheer of the holiday season.

Before everything went to hell, she and her mother and Frannie would enjoy a yearly tradition of tastefully decorating the house and taking special care with the tree, reminiscing over each and every ornament as they'd pulled it from the box and hung it on the tree. The Fabrays never went overboard with the commercialization of Christmas the way so many families seemed to do. There were never any tacky, inflatable Santa Clauses on the front yard or choreographed light displays flashing from dusk until dawn, and the gifts beneath the tree were never extravagant or excessive. Quinn wishes that she could say it was because they never lost sight of the true meaning of the holiday, but she knows their prudence was always more about the appearance of being a good, Christian family than actually living faithful and charitable lives three-hundred and sixty-five days a year. Every year, without fail, the entire family would don their brand new Christmas outfits to attend the midnight mass on Christmas Eve and pretend—for a few hours, at least—that they could be that warm and content together every day.

Quinn remembers holding onto her mother's hand as they'd gone shopping at the mall—eyes wide and smiling as she'd taken in the decorations and the music and the hustle and bustle of people all around her, weighted down with dozens of colorful shopping bags. As she'd gotten older, it had gotten increasingly less fun to battle the crowds, but that one afternoon of Christmas shopping with her mother had remained a tradition until the year she'd gotten pregnant. They'd tried it again the next year, but the whole ordeal had been nearly as painful as her labor with Beth.

Even with the discontent of her teenage years overshadowing her happy memories, Quinn never lost her love for the season. Most of the traditions that she'd shared with her family had been destroyed after her pregnancy, but she and her mother had still taken quiet joy in putting up the Christmas tree and pausing over every ornament through the last of her high school years until the end of college.

During her first year in New York, she'd been out at the beginning of November in search of the perfect Christmas tree. She would have loved to have bought a real one, but she'd been realistic enough about the size and location of her apartment to know that an artificial tree would be easier for her to transport and maintain. Rachel had tried to convince her to get the real tree if she really wanted it, insisting that she and Kurt and Santana would be happy to help Quinn juggle it from the lot to her building, up her stairs and into the one, tiny corner that it could possibly fit into, but Quinn had been firm in her decision, and the tree that she'd eventually found had been the perfect size for her small space.

So with her iPod shuffling through Christmas songs, she'd reverently opened up the box of ornaments that her mother had helped her carefully pack and placed each one on her tree as she'd lost herself to her memories. Rachel had been adorably put-out because Quinn hadn't asked her (or Santana or Kurt) to come over and help her decorate, and it had mostly tickled Quinn at the time that Rachel cared so much, but putting up her first Christmas tree in her very own apartment had been something that Quinn had wanted to do on her own—an odd sort of goodbye to past traditions and a clean slate for the future.

Her second year in the city had brought the first Christmas—well, _Christmukkah_—with Rachel as her girlfriend. They hadn't been living together at the time, so the holidays consisted of them decorating two separate apartments and two separate trees. Well—one and _a half _trees. Rachel's old place had been even smaller than Quinn's, so her tree was one of those little three-footers that fit on top of the coffee table, and even though Rachel had grown up celebrating a mashup of both Hanukkah and Christmas, her family's spiritual focus was always more on Hanukkah—with a lot of colorful Christmas decorations and an unsurprising love of any and every Christmas carol added in for good measure. The Berrys are a very musical family, after all.

Quinn honestly hadn't even thought twice before she'd pulled her tree out of the storage bag that she'd had jammed under her bed and erected it on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving. She'd had the day off work, and Rachel had two performances to keep her at the theatre, so it had seemed like the perfect time for Quinn to start her Christmas decorating. Rachel hadn't agreed, and she'd pouted for over an hour because Quinn hadn't waited for her to help, but at least Quinn was able to freely give into her urge to kiss the frown from her lips before she'd reminded Rachel that it gave them more time to simply enjoy the decorations—and _other things_.

The third year found them finally cohabitating, but Rachel had been on tour with _Les Mis_ all through November and December, so Quinn had been forced to undertake the decorating duties all alone once again. Rachel had been upset about being so far away, and Quinn had been sad that she was spending the holidays without her girlfriend, but when Rachel had flown home late on Christmas Eve for a two day break from performances, they'd both been incredibly happy to celebrate their reunion in front of an already decorated tree.

And this year—this year, they're together. In every way. And Quinn has the pleasure of sharing the entire holiday season with the woman she loves. The woman who is currently wearing a hideous Christmas sweater that rivals anything she'd ever favored in high school (but sadly without the very short skirt to distract Quinn's eyes with more appealing things) and a lopsided elf hat (that Quinn had only made a single joke about—so far) as she feverishly scribbles a list of everything that they're going to need to transform their apartment into The Very Berry (Fabray) Christmukkah Wonderland.

No lie. The list is titled that way.

"Do you think you might be going just a little bit overboard?" Quinn wonders from next to Rachel as she catches sight of _Xmas themed bathroom set_ written on the list. She really doesn't want Santa staring at her from anywhere inside their bathroom. Just—_no_!

Rachel's pen pauses against the paper, and her gaze flies to Quinn. "I most certainly am not. This is our first holiday season cohabitating, Quinn!"

"Actually, it's our second," Quinn points out.

Rachel's eyes narrow. "You know very well what I mean. Last year I was unfairly deprived of the opportunity to fully merge our traditions and create a new one of our very own, and I'm not about to let it happen again. We are undertaking every, single festivity _together_ this year, starting with a brand, new tree."

"We don't need a new tree," Quinn argues with a frown. "The one we have still looks fine." They'd tossed Rachel's tiny tabletop tree in favor of Quinn's prelit, six foot one when they'd moved in together.

"But it's artificial," Rachel reminds her. "I know that you'd really prefer a real tree, so that's what we're getting. We have the room for it. I think," she amends, pausing to press the top of her pen to the side of her mouth as she eyes the corner of their living room.

"Actually, I've gotten kind of fond of the artificial one," Quinn admits with a shrug. "It's nice to be able to put it up earlier, and it's a heck of a lot easier to clean up after." It's true that she used to love the smell and feel of a real tree when she'd been younger, but she can also remember how her mother had to constantly vacuum up those shedding pine needles and Russell had cursed under his breath every time she'd asked him to fill the stand with fresh water. "And can you imagine what Ollie would do to it?" Quinn adds with a raised brow, glancing at their not-so-innocent cat who is currently perched on the back of their sofa with wide, curious eyes trained on the bell at the tip of Rachel's hat. "I'm not sure I even trust him with the tree we already have, but I definitely don't think we should be tempting him with real branches to climb all over."

"He might surprise us," Rachel defends.

Quinn raises a skeptical brow. "Yeah. With the tree knocked over and the ornaments broken on the floor."

Rachel glances at the cat that she'd rescued from the cold—he looks to be about five seconds from flinging himself at her hat, complete with swishing tail and wiggling backside—and sighs. "I suppose it would be wise to err on the side of caution until we see how well he behaves."

As if on cue, Oliver pounces forward with one paw extended and snags the bell on the tip of the hat. Rachel quickly presses a hand to head to secure her accessory and shifts away from him, determinedly adjusting the hat to keep it out of his reach, and Quinn laughs. "I think you mean _mis_behaves."

Rachel meets Quinn's amused gaze with a pout. "I guess the new tree is a definite _no_."

"So is the bathroom set," Quinn informs her, leaning over to tap the list in Rachel's lap.

Rachel frowns in confusion, and her eyebrows furrow adorably. "Oliver can't do much damage to that."

"He can if I douse it in catnip and lock him in the bathroom with it."

Rachel gasps, eye's widening. "Quinn!" she chastises. "I thought you loved Christmas."

"I do. And I will happily help you deck every hall in this apartment, but the bathroom is off limits," she insists. "There will be absolutely no Santas, reindeers, or snowmen staring at me while I shower." Never mind doing her other private business.

Rachel's frown curls into teasing smile. "What about elves?" she asks cheekily.

Quinn chuckles. "Just the one," she concedes, playfully tugging at Rachel's hat. "And only if she showers _with_ me."

"I believe that's an acceptable compromise," Rachel tells her with a grin, closing the distance between them until she can brush a soft, coffee-flavored kiss across Quinn's lips, but before Quinn can even begin to properly enjoy the contact, her girlfriend is pulling away with determined eyes and the list clutched in her hands. "Now, let's get moving," she commands, bouncing up from the sofa. "We have a very full schedule of merry-making ahead of us."

"And you'll be checking off your Christmas list," Quinn muses with a smirk.

Rachel bends down, close to Quinn's face. "Just call me Santa, baby," she husks.

Quinn watches Rachel's lips as they form the words, leaning in ever so slightly. "You're wearing the wrong hat for that," she drawls evenly, delighting in Rachel's affronted expression.

"You are so going on the naughty list," Rachel warns as she lightly slaps Quinn's knee.

"I'll show you just how naughty I can be later," Quinn promises, reaching out to tug on the hem of Rachel's very ugly Christmas sweater. It will look so much better on the floor of their bedroom—or in the trash bin—though she might let Rachel keep the hat on.

Rachel bites her lip thoughtfully. "Will I have to spank you?"

"You might," Quinn purrs.

Rachel's eyelids flutter slightly, and she groans under her breath. "Suddenly, decorating is the farthest thing from my mind."

"But we have a full schedule of merry-making ahead of us," Quinn reminds her in amusement as she pushes up from the sofa. She tugs the list out of Rachel's hands and gives it a cursory glance, humming softly before she tosses it onto the cushions. "We won't be needing that."

"Quinn!" Rachel huffs, placing her hands on her hips.

Quinn laughs and rolls her eyes, pulling Rachel closer. "I think we can manage to make this Christmukkah pretty perfect without that list."

"But…"

"Rachel, we've got this," Quinn interrupts. Decorating their apartment will be so much more fun without a list or a schedule. She leans in and captures her girlfriend's lips in a sweet kiss before she pulls back with a smile, and then she gets the pleasure of watching Rachel's face take on that sexy, determined look that she loves so much.

"We've got this," Rachel repeats with a nod.

And they do. The tree and ornaments are shoved underneath the bed in the second bedroom. Quinn is very skilled at compact packing—a talent that she'd honed back in high school under less than ideal circumstances. Of course, Oliver pads into the bedroom when he hears the crinkling of the tree bag as Quinn and Rachel pull it out from underneath the bed, and from that moment on, he makes a silent cat vow to investigate every branch, needle, and light on it. Quinn shoos him out of the bag twice and Rachel tries a third time before they both give up and drag the entire bag—Oliver included—into the living room where the drop it onto the floor.

Rachel turns on the Christmukkah playlist that she'd made (of course) for the occasion, and then they rearrange the chair and ottoman enough to make a space in the corner before Quinn helps Rachel heave the bottom section of the tree into the stand. Quinn moves to put up the middle section, but Rachel stops her.

"We should fluff up the branches first," she suggests.

"Or we could fluff them all after the tree is up." After all, that's the way Quinn has done it in the past.

"It will be easier this way," Rachel insists.

"No, it won't," Quinn argues. "It's easier once you see the whole thing together. Trust me."

Rachel frowns. "But this section is so flat right now." She tugs at a few of the branches, spreading them apart as she continues to eye it critically. .

"It's flat so I could fit it under the bed," Quinn points out.

"Just let me fix the bottom," Rachel pleads. "Then we can see exactly how far from the wall it should be."

Quinn sighs, leaning the middle section she's been holding against the side of the sofa. "Fine," she concedes, watching as Rachel's mouth curve into a triumphant smile before she busies herself with artfully arranging the lower branches. Quinn moves to help her, but Oliver is already sneaking underneath the base of the tree and poking his head up into it. "Oh, no you don't," she warns him, reaching down to drag him back. She picks him up in her arms and catches his mischievous green eyes. "There will be no climbing the tree," she tells him strictly.

Rachel giggles. "He's only curious, Quinn. It's his first Christmas." Her hands still on the branches, and she gasps. "Oh. We have to get him an ornament!" she exclaims with wide eyes. "Do you think we can find one that says _Kitty's first Christmukkah_?"

Quinn arches her eyebrow. "If anyone can, it's you," she considers, depositing Oliver back onto the sofa—where he doesn't stay.

Pleased with that answer, Rachel turns her attention back to fluffing the branches while Quinn alternates between helping her and discouraging Oliver's more rambunctious _curiosity_. Eventually, Rachel is satisfied with the bottom of the tree, but then they end up moving it back and forth six times before Rachel is pleased with its position in the room. They finally attach the middle section, and Quinn doesn't even argue when Rachel begins fluffing the branches before Quinn can put on the top.

Once the tree itself is up and lit, they pull out the box of ornaments—another treasure chest for Oliver to explore—and Quinn quickly loses herself in the joy of sharing this experience with Rachel. Even shooing Oliver away from the tree every five minutes doesn't dampen Quinn's happiness as she and Rachel sing carols and unpack every ornament, hanging them on the tree as they tell one another stories of Christmases and Hanukkahs past that they hadn't been able share last year.

Quinn gets a little teary when she pulls out the glass heart engraved with the words _my heart comes home for Christmas_ that Rachel had brought her last year when she'd come back from Houston on Christmas Eve. Rachel smiles knowingly and leans into her side, kissing Quinn's cheek before they hang it on the tree together. On a high branch—where Oliver can't get to it.

Hopefully.

When he knocks the plastic mouse hanging from a Santa hat off a low branch—the one that Mercedes had gotten Quinn sophomore year to encourage her to hang in there—Quinn decides that maybe they should invest in a water bottle, but even that doesn't really bother Quinn. She and Rachel don't need a list, or even the decorations, or a well-behaved cat to make their Christmukkah perfect. All they need is each other.

Much later, after Oliver is worn out from all the excitement, Quinn cuddles close to Rachel on the sofa while the Christmas music plays in the background and they admire their finished tree—decorated with love and twinkling with hundreds of tiny lights. Rachel turns in her arms and presses a warm kiss to Quinn's lips. "Merry Christmas, baby," she murmurs.

Quinn smiles and pulls her closer. "Happy Hanukkah, Rach."

It's the perfect start to the holiday season—and the many holiday seasons to come.


End file.
